Lloyds Banking Group CEO António Horta-Osorio had finally made a decision to break the silence his alleged affair with Dr Wendy Piatt when he was on a business trip more than two weeks ago.
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In the memo, Horta-Osorio wrote, “My personal life is obviously a private matter as it is for anyone else”.
The boss of Lloyds, Antonio Horta-Osorio, says he regrets the “adverse publicity and damage” caused by recent media coverage of his personal life. “But I deeply regret being the cause of so much adverse publicity and the damage that has been done to the group’s reputation”, he wrote in the memo on Wednesday.
In a message sent to the bank’s 75,000 employees, the banker said that anyone can make mistakes while insisting that staff had to maintain the highest professional standards. “It has detracted from the great work which you do for our customers on a daily basis and from the major accomplishments of the past five years”.
He was attending a banking conference in Singapore.
I will continue to strive to meet those standards.
Lloyds Banking Group’s (LON:LLOY) chief executive has apologised for the scandal surrounding claims that he had an affair and pledged to ‘learn from those mistakes, ‘ The Telegraph has reported.
While Lloyds backed Horta-Osorio, confirming that he had covered his personal spending, the press scrutiny prompted concerns about his future at the part taxpayer-owned lender.
“. please be assured that I am as committed as ever to leading the Group forward to deliver our strategy and to meet our future ambitions”, Mr Horta-Osorio said in the memo on Wednesday.
The bank is in the process of cutting 3,000 jobs to increase profitability.
Though it is probably notable that Lloyds remains part owned by the tax payer, at last count it held about 9%, and Horta-Osorio – who previously had a clean cut public image – has overseen United Kingdom job cuts in the thousands.
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European markets were mixed at the end of Wednesday’s trading day as investors await clues on a US rate rise when Federal Reserve head Janet Yellen speaks in Jackson Hole on Friday.
