Retail banking head quits Abbey

The head of Abbey National's retail banking operation left the board yesterday, a day after the bank warned it would make a loss and cut its dividend for the first time since its stock market flotation in 1989.

Andrew Pople, who joined Abbey just before the float, said he was leaving to "seek a fresh direction" outside the group. He is on a one-year contract, suggesting a payment of about £577,000.

Speculation about boardroom upheaval at Abbey began after the announcement on Wednesday that it was embarking on a radical reshaping of its business. The first of the building societies to convert to a bank, Abbey is returning to its roots by focusing on retail financial products and pulling out of the risky wholesale banking activities that led to bad debts estimated at £500m or more by analysts.

These bad debts, along with £500m of accounting changes in the insurance businesses and unquantified goodwill write-offs for previous acquisitions, have caused the loss, which compares with a £1.9bn profit last year.

The City expects more departures. "With a restructruing of this kind more people should go," said one analyst, who asked not to be named. A number of senior executives have gone, including former chief executive Ian Harley.

New faces have been brought in, starting with finance director Stephen Hester, followed by Lord Burns - the former Treasury mandarin - as chairman, and more recently former investment banker Luqman Arnold as chief executive.

Remaining directors on Abbey's board are Mark Pain, the former finance director who now runs the wholesale bank, Malcolm Millington who runs wealth management, and Yasmin Jetha, who is in charge of IT.

Abbey said the directors were "all part of the new team".

Mr Arnold, who has been chief executive for little over a month, paid tribute to Mr Pople, who has been managing director of retail banking for the last six years.

"I have only worked with him for a very short time and am sorry he will not be part of the new organisation," Mr Arnold said.

Mr Pople said: "I am very pleased we're doing this amicably. I've got one or two thoughts about what to do next".

The shares, still owned by 2m retail investors because of Abbey's legacy as a building society, fell 25p to 642.5p.