Alliance Boots woos HBOS’s Andy Hornby
FORMER HBOS chief executive Andy Hornby is poised to become the new chief executive at high street giant Alliance Boot, giving him the chance to restore his reputation.
Andy Hornby resigned from HBOS in October 2008, waiving a £1.6m bonus after the bank’s near collapse. Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina has been running Alliance Boots as executive chairman since 2007 when Richard Baker quit the company after it was taken over by private equity firm KKR.
The group said yesterday: “Alliance Boots confirms it is currently engaged in discussions with Andy Hornby, who is a leading candidate for the role. It hopes to complete the process shortly and a further announcement will be made at that time.”
Hornby was previously coveted for the role in 2003, but HBOS awarded him a £2m loyalty bonus to sway him from taking the top job. But since then the former wunderkind has been largely blamed for running HBOS into the ground after the group posted banking losses of £11bn, before being swallowed up by rival Lloyds.
Hornby has kept a close eye on the high street as non-executive director at the Home Retail group which owns Argos and Homebase. This follows his management stint at Asda under chairman Archie Norman.
CV ANDY HORNBY
Born: 21 January 1967
Education: Oxford (English, St Peter’s College); Harvard Business School (MBA).
Career: Boston Consulting Group; Blue Circle Home Products (1993-1995); Asda (1996-99); Halifax, now HBOS, as chief executive of retail division (1999-resigned 2008))