After seizing the control of the Barclay Family over a dispute regarding debts secured against business, the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group said that he was not in a hurry to sell.
Charlie Nunn is the chief executive of Lloyds. This was the first time he made public comments since sending in receivers last month and removing Barclay representatives from the Board.
Senior Conservatives expressed concern about Lloyds’ ownership of an influential news organization. They called for a new long-term owner to be found as soon as possible to help the company navigate the transition to digital subscriptions.
Nunn added: “There is no need for a hasty sale.”
The Spectator, also owned by Barclay in the same group, is “a well-performing business”, he said. The Telegraph reported this week a profit before tax of £39m for 2022, a 32pc increase.
Mr Nunn said that he had taken over Lloyds in 2021 from Antonio Horta Osorio because of the “long-term” debts secured against the company.
“I inherited this situation, and we thought it was time to act on behalf of our investors and ensure that we got the best return possible on the debt we had provided to the companies and family.”
The debt is believed to be more than £1bn. Lloyds has already written off a portion or all of the debt in its books and stands to benefit from a sale that is expected to start formally in September.
Mr Nunn stated: “We have set up an independent receivership, and all of this is being managed completely independently from executives at Lloyds Banking Group.” You can understand why it’s important to us and me personally that we’re not involved in decision-making around the way the process is run.
“We have given the receivers complete freedom to run the process with the correct diligence. From our perspective, we want to make sure the process runs well from the UK perspective and maximize the returns for our investors.”
Mike McTighe, a City veteran and former AlixPartners receiver, has been appointed as the chairman of the parent company to oversee the auction. McTighe, who is also the chairman of BT’s network arm Openreach as well as spreadbetting provider IG Group and is familiar to Lloyds for his previous work in debt restructuring processes, is the City veteran Mike McTighe.
The Barclays declined to comment.
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