Fred Goodwin

Frederick Anderson Goodwin FRSE FCIBS (born 17 August 1958) is a Scottish chartered accountant and former banker who was Chief executive officer (CEO) of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) between 2001 and 2009.

He joined accountants Touche Ross, and qualified as a chartered accountant in 1983.

Between 1985 and 1987, he was part of a Touche Ross management consultant team at Rosyth Dockyard, and became a partner in Touche Ross in 1988.

His move into banking came through his work at Touche Ross with the National Australia Bank, contributing due diligence to its 1987 takeover of Clydesdale Bank from the then Midland Bank and again with its 1995 takeover of Yorkshire Bank.

He was appointed a director of Short Brothers, and tasked with preparing the largest industrial employer in Northern Ireland for its 1989 privatisation.

For Touche Ross he headed the worldwide liquidation of Bank of Credit and Commerce International after its collapse in July 1991.

At 32, Goodwin was in charge of 1,000 people with teams from London to Abu Dhabi and the Cayman Islands that eventually returned over half the money from one of the most complicated, high-profile financial frauds ever.

The extent of his role in the liquidation of Bank of Credit and Commerce International was questioned by finance journalist Ian Fraser.

During work on the latter he caught the eye of National Australia Bank executive Don Argus, and was invited to become deputy chief executive of Clydesdale in 1995, and as per his "five-second rule", accepted on the spot rising to chief executive of National Australia's British banking operations in 1996.

Around this time he gained the moniker "Fred the Shred" from City financiers, reflecting a reputation for ruthlessly generating cost savings and efficiencies whilst at Clydesdale.

He joined Royal Bank of Scotland in 1998 as deputy CEO to then-CEO Sir George Mathewson, who had ambitions to make RBS a major player rather than a national bank.

From 2000 to 2008, he presided over RBS's rapid rise to global prominence as the world's largest company by assets (£1.9 trillion), and fifth-largest bank by stock market value and its even more rapid fall as RBS was forced into effective nationalisation in 2008.

RBS made waves in 2000 with its £23.6 billion takeover of NatWest, a bank three times its size.

Although Goodwin's predecessor Mathewson led the deal, it was Goodwin's diligence and ability to impress investors which secured it against fierce competition from the Bank of Scotland.

The Sunday Times wrote that "The NatWest deal was the making of Goodwin," with Goodwin promoted to CEO in January 2001, soon after it was secured, dedicated to continuing Mathewson's vision.

Goodwin lived up to his reputation, cutting 18,000 jobs by merging parts of RBS and NatWest.

After the purchase of NatWest, RBS made a string of further acquisitions around the world, including the purchase of Irish mortgage provider First Active and UK insurers Churchill Insurance and Direct Line.

During negotiations with Credit Suisse over the acquisition of Churchill, it is said that Goodwin maintained silence for an hour at lunch with Credit Suisse's CEO, supporting his demand for indemnity against any potential losses from the associated The Accident Group, which would collapse soon after.

He got his way.

RBS also bulked up its US Citizens Financial Group, Inc. arm with a string of further deals.

Between 2002 and 2005, the share price plateaued at around £17 per share, having nearly trebled between February 2000 and May 2002.

Goodwin was accused of megalomania by some shareholders, as reported by Dresdner Kleinwort analyst James Eden (who said he thought the label was 'unwarranted').

Following the Bank of China deal, he was forced to promise RBS shareholders he would not indulge in any further big acquisitions and focus instead on growing the group organically.

Then in May 2004, RBS said it would purchase Charter One Financial Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio for $10.5 billion.

The deal, at a price "widely considered too high" spread the RBS's banking web across the Midwest for the first time, and made its U.S. banking operations No. 7 in the United States.

However, following investor unrest in the build-up to RBS's acquisition of a $1.6bn minority stake in Bank of China in 2005, Goodwin was criticised by some RBS shareholders for putting global expansion ahead of short-term financial returns.

In 2006, pre-tax profits climbed 16% to £9.2 billion with significant growth coming from its investment banking business.

From the time that Goodwin took over as chief executive until 2007, RBS's assets quadrupled, its cost-to-income ratio improved markedly, and its profits soared.

However, in early 2007, Dutch bank ABN Amro was under pressure from hedge funds, including Chris Hohn of the hedge fund TCI, to break itself up in order to maximise shareholder value.

ABN chief executive Rijkman Groenink suspected RBS of acting in concert with the hedge fund Tosca, which was chaired by former RBS Chairman Mathewson and recommended the takeover bid of an RBS consortium, against the proposed merger with Barclays Bank.

Goodwin arranged a consortium of RBS, Fortis and former RBS shareholders Grupo Santander, to purchase the assets of ABN Amro and break them up in a three-way split.

According to the proposed deal, RBS would take over ABN's Chicago operations, LaSalle Bank, and ABN's wholesale operations; while Santander would take the Brazilian operations and Fortis the Dutch operations.

In a manoeuvre "labelled in all quarters as a poison pill" ABN Amro agreed to sell key RBS target LaSalle to Bank of America for $21bn, but in July 2007 the consortium offered the same $98bn for ABN's remaining assets, with a higher cash component (93%).

On 11 October 2008, Goodwin officially announced his resignation as chief executive and an early retirement, effective from 31 January 2009 – a month before RBS announced that its 2008 loss totalled £24.1 billion, the largest annual loss in UK corporate history.

By 2008 RBS was the fifth-largest bank in the world by market capitalisation.

One of the factors in its rise was its enthusiasm for supporting leveraged buyouts.

In 2008 it lent $9.3bn, more than double its nearest rival.

From January 2010, he was employed as a senior adviser to RMJM, an international architecture firm.

He left the position after less than a year.

Born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Goodwin is the son of a Scottish electrician and was the first of his family to go to university, attending Paisley Grammar School before studying law at Glasgow University.