FCA urged to publish HBOS findings

THE City watchdog is under pressure to pub- lish details of a probe into failed bank HBOS after the lender’s former boss was handed control of a stock market-listed company.

Regulators at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have been looking into who was responsible for the bank’s collapse and subsequent takeover by Lloyds in 2008.

Their report is likely to give a verdict on actions of former HBOS chief executive Andy Hornby, who was this week put in charge of FTSE 250 firm The Restaurant Group.

But the FCA is yet to publish its report, and is under pressure to finish its investigation and punish Hornby if he is found to have done anything wrong. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable, a former Business Secretary, said: ‘I’m amazed boards of some of the companies which have hired former senior bankers haven’t done their due diligence. We’ve been kept waiting for ten years for the true record to emerge from HBOS, and we shouldn’t wait any longer.’

FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey faces a grilling by MPs on the Treasury Select Committee next month about the HBOS probe.

Labour MP John Mann, a member of the committee, said: ‘The FCA must not drag its feet any longer. Mr Hornby’s role in the disaster at HBOS must be made public – and he must face the consequences if he was responsible for what happened.’

HBOS collapsed at the height of the financial crisis, and was only saved from going bust through a rescue merger with Lloyds that almost destroyed them both.

The Government stepped into save them from collapse with a £20bn bailout.

The failure led to a massive outcry, followed by a damning Parliamentary report which said that Hornby bore primary responsibility for what had happened. It also pointed the finger at his predecessor Sir James Crosby and chairman Lord Stevenson. In January the FCA said a probe that began three years ago was nearly complete.