B&B in safe pair of CEO hands

Staid and uninspiring is the Daily Telegraph’s take on former
Alliance & Leicester CEO Richard Pym. But the freshly appointed chief
executive of Bradford & Bingley, on a salary of £750,000 and a bonus package
pushing it towards £1m, is probably the only thing the stricken lender has to
make a song and dance about.

Pym, who hit the corporate big-time in 1992 when he joined A&L as finance
director from previous FD jobs at Burton Group companies, comes out of
retirement after almost three-quarters of a £400m rights issue was ignored by
shareholders and left with the underwriters.

Pym’s reputation is as a safe pair of hands, who will focus on fundamentals
at B&B and cut the sexy stuff. “He is expected to focus on costs and on
managing Bradford & Bingley’s riskier specialist loans,” said The
Times.

The Guardian said one criticism that could be levelled at Pym was
that he was “too pedestrian” in his time at A&L. Perhaps classic ‘boring’
accountants will finally have their day amid the crunch.