Yahoo Finance Kingman Grilled By PRA In Quest For L&G Chair
One of Britain's leading civil servants has been grilled by financial watchdogs as he closes in on a plum boardroom post at the insurance giant Legal & General (LSE: LGEN.L - news) (L&G).
Sky News has learnt that John Kingman, the second permanent secretary at the Treasury, was interviewed on Wednesday by officials at the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) as they scrutinise L&G's plans to name a new chairman.
The step is a routine one for such a senior role at a major bank or insurer, but will have put Mr Kingman in an unfamiliar position: on the opposite side of the table from officials with whom he has worked as a colleague for years.
His interview is expected to be followed by a further session with a panel of PRA board members, while Whitehall's Advisory Committee on Business Appointments will also be required to approve the appointment, according to people familiar with the process.
A statement by L&G about Mr Kingman's recruitment as the successor to John Stewart is expected to be made in July, Whitehall sources said.
L&G previously said that it "expects to be in a position to make an announcement on the appointment of a successor chair in the coming weeks".
If Mr Kingman is appointed to the L&G chairmanship, it will mean that one of the City's top roles will have been filled by an architect of the efforts to prevent Britain's banking system from collapsing during the 2008 financial crisis.
It may also, however, provoke renewed questions about the perception of a revolving door between Whitehall and the private sector.
Those questions may be particularly pronounced in the wake of wide-ranging pensions reforms introduced by the Treasury which have impacted major providers of annuities, such as L&G.
Mr Kingman went on to run UK Financial Investments, the agency which manages the taxpayer's stakes in the bailed-out lenders, before returning to the Treasury and then moving to Rothschild, the investment bank.
He was recruited again by the Treasury in 2012, but recently lost out to Tom Scholar in the race to become the finance ministry's permanent secretary.
Last month, he was appointed as the first chair of UK Research & Innovation, a body being established by the Government to exploit scientific development more effectively.
It would be unusual for a company of the size of L&G to appoint someone so inexperienced in UK boardrooms as its chairman, although there is little doubt about Mr Kingman's intellectual suitability for the post.
As the owner of Legal & General Investment Management, L&G has a stake in every blue-chip company listed in London.
Under Nigel Wilson, its chief executive, the group has sought to diversify into providing long-term capital for important infrastructure projects, such as housing, hospitals and transport schemes.
L&G declined to comment on Thursday.
