António Horta Osório, in an interview, also reveals that he is a defender of “smart immigration” (as countries like Australia have) and that it involves receiving immigrants with the qualifications that the country needs. “It is important to start by defining clear, transparent immigration policies that are aligned with the real needs of the labor markets”, argues the banker. The advice comes at a time when immigration takes over the political debate in the Western world.
António Horta Osório, a Portuguese banker with the best international career to date, has been non-executive vice-president of the French bank CCF – Crédit Commercial de France since August, the former bank that is now a subsidiary of My Money Group and which is owned by the Cerberus Capital Management private equity fund, where he is a senior consultant.
At the same time, he holds another new position in banking, that of member of the supervisory board of the Polish Velobank, which acquired Citigroup’s retail business in Poland in July, and which is also owned by Cerberus. He also holds the positions of senior consultant at Mediobanca and private equity managers Precision Capital, which, in turn, also has a bank, Quintet Private Bank.
His experience in banking is vast. The highlight of his career was when he led Lloyds Banking Group for a decade, between 2011 and 2021, being widely recognized for having led the British bank back to profitability, after one of the most difficult periods in the history of the English bank when it received financial support from the British government during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. António Horta Osório was also non-executive president of the disappeared Credit Suisse, having resigned from the position before the Swiss rescue that culminated in the integration into UBS.
In an interview for the weekly section “The Decision Maker of the Week”, António Horta Osório talks about his career as a banker, says that he does not want to return to being an executive director, but admits his availability for challenges that involve turning around companies, since turning around adverse situations has always been his specialty.
Look at banking in Portugal, where in the past he played a relevant role as president of Santander de Negócios and Santander Totta, as one of the best moments of the last 30 years.
António Horta Osório is a defender of “smart immigration”, as countries like Australia have, which involves receiving immigrants with the qualifications that the country needs. “It is important to start by defining clear, transparent immigration policies that are aligned with the real needs of the labor markets”, argues the manager. The advice comes at a time when immigration takes over the political debate in the Western world.
Do you consider that the non-executive vice-presidency of the French bank CCF – Crédit Commercial de France represents your return to banking? It is a bank of modest dimensions, compared to the giants it has already passed through. What is the mandate for the French bank?
My entry into the CCF Board, like my recent entry into the Board of the Polish bank Velo Bank, also owned by Cerberus and which acquired Citigroup’s retail activities in Poland, follows my collaboration as Senior Advisor at Cerberus, which began more than 3 years ago. Cerberus is one of the world’s largest Private Equity companies, and specializes in the financial sector. At both banks, my position is non-executive, at CCF as vice-chairman and at Velobank as a member of the supervisory board. And in the case of CCF, I was already closely linked to the bank since its acquisition by Cerberus from HSBC, in which I actively participated, and I already spent around three days a month in Paris to attend the Boards of Directors and other committees of the Bank since its acquisition. Cerberus was interested from the beginning in me joining the Board of Directors, which I decided to accept last July.
Talking about returning to banking is not appropriate, especially since I have also been a senior advisor at Mediobanca and Precision Capital for a few years. In other words, my connection to banking and the financial sector has always remained, it just evolved into a different role than the one I had during previous decades, before I was CEO and now I am a Non-Executive Director or Senior Advisor.
At the moment he holds positions in three banks (one French, one Polish and one Italian) and is also at Precision Capital which also has a bank, Quintet Private Bank. Is there no incompatibility in being in different banks in a global financial world?
These are banks that operate in different markets and segments, so the question does not arise; CCF and Velobank operate in retail in France and Poland respectively; Quintet Bank is a Private bank operating in Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom, while Mediobanca is a European investment bank.
“Lloyds was, without a doubt, the biggest challenge of my career — due to the scale of the bank, the extremely demanding context in which I took on my role and the responsibility of returning the institution to the private sector after State intervention and returning money to British taxpayers”
He was Emílio and Ana Botín’s right-hand man for almost 20 years, until he accepted the challenge of saving the British Lloyds Bank from bankruptcy. He managed to make the British bank Lloyds, nationalized during the subprime crisis, once again completely private, having returned to the English State all the taxpayers’ money injected during the crisis. Was Lloyds the biggest challenge of your career?
Lloyds was, without a doubt, the biggest challenge of my career — due to the scale of the bank, the extremely demanding context in which I took on my role and the responsibility of returning the institution to the private sector after State intervention and returning money to British taxpayers. That was my priority, in fact, to return to British taxpayers the 20 billion pounds they had injected into the bank as quickly as possible. We achieved this in 2017, with a profit, which was and is a source of enormous pride for the entire team.
Looking back, what role did you enjoy most and why?
I really enjoyed carrying out all the executive positions I had and which were the result of well-thought-out choices made together with my wife, given the important implications that resulted from most positions requiring us to change countries or having very relevant changes in our family life.
Taking the BSNP (Banco Santander de Negócios Portugal) from scratch at the age of 29, together with a group of friends who were exceptionally competent in their fields, was an extraordinary experience and one that left me a little “out of touch” several times, but it developed me a lot.
Starting Santander’s retail activities in Brazil at the age of 32 was also a very rich experience in a country that for us Portuguese has many cultural affinities, starting with the language. I was accompanied by 8 Portuguese and 6 Spaniards and we constantly heard the question if we were from the bank of Santo André (a city near São Paulo) when we said we were from Banco Santander!… And we had to go through the Asian crisis of 1997, the Russian default in 1998 and the devaluation of the real against the dollar from 1.2 to c. 5 reais per dollar in 1999, which led to deep crises in the Brazilian economy and financial markets in each of those three years, but prepared me very well for the great financial crisis of 2008.
Today Santander is the largest foreign arm in Brazil and Brazil is by far the biggest generator of results for the Santander Group.
“I continue to work an average of 5 days a week, 10 hours a day, but with 15% of the stress I had as an executive”
Would you like to return to banking as an executive manager?
I always say that in life there is a time for everything and that the important thing is to do things at the right time and then look back and feel fulfilled with what was achieved.
After a decade at Lloyds, an incredibly intense and deeply rewarding period, I felt that the cycle of recovery and transformation was fully complete and so I felt that moving into non-executive roles was a logical and natural step. I’ve always said that people shouldn’t stay in their positions, companies benefit from having new perspectives and Executives benefit from having new challenges.
Now that it’s been 4 years since I made it, I can say it was clearly the right decision. And I have really enjoyed working in sectors and with companies that I like, with people that I really admire and doing what I enjoy most, as a Mentor, as a Senior Advisor, as Chairman of the Board of Directors, or as a Non-Executive Director, sharing my management and leadership experience in sectors that go beyond banking, especially in Healthcare, which allows me to have a more eclectic view of the world and take advantage of my past experience to help develop projects that I like and where I can add value. And I continue to work an average of 5 days a week, 10 hours a day, but with 15% of the stress I had as an executive.
“The Portuguese banking system is in one of the best moments I can remember in the last 30 years”
As a banker that you have always been, how do you see the purchase of Novobanco by the French group BPCE?
The sale of Novobanco to the French BPCE was, in my opinion, positive for the bank, for the financial system and its customers and for the country in general.
It is positive, as the Minister of Finance said at the time, not to have too much concentration in terms of ownership of the banking sector in a single country, whatever it may be, and in this aspect the French have little presence in Portuguese banking. BPCE is the second largest French bank by equity and the 4th largest in Europe, it has a decentralized culture and is very close to customers, which seems very positive for Novobanco and its customers and it chose Portugal as its 2nd main market in Europe, which shows the interest that the country is arousing in terms of foreign direct investment.
What are the challenges for the banking sector? Do you think that the consolidation of the banking sector still has a way to go, or on the contrary, is it already at a very high level?
The Portuguese financial system is very strong, the banks are well capitalized, with very positive capital ratios, very low non-performing loans and good liquidity ratios. Furthermore, they have good quality of service and good levels of efficiency. I have already had the opportunity to say that the Portuguese banking system is in one of the best moments I can remember in the last 30 years.
Turning around adverse situations has always been your specialty, do you continue to look for these challenges in the investments you seek to make?
It’s true that this is my specialty, always in conjunction with what I consider to have been great teams or “hard cores”, as it has always been teamwork. If new opportunities of this type arise, I will always be available to analyze them.
In an attempt to recover the giant Lloyds Banking, he began to sleep less and less and work more and more, he was devoured by stress and suffered a serious episode of “burn-out”. What is certain is that when no one in the City of London was betting on his return, he returned and returned all the public money used to rescue the British financial institution. What has changed in your life since then?
The exhaustion episode at Lloyds was a very difficult time, but also an important turning point in my professional and personal life. I realized that no one is immune to prolonged stress, regardless of experience or resilience, and I gained a much greater sensitivity to mental health issues. At the time, no one at City had left leadership roles for mental health reasons and returned. I had this possibility and felt that I should use my example to help.
I started by doing it within Lloyds itself, working to completely demystify the topic. We launched a mental health prevention program that started with the executive committee — with nutrition initiatives, improving sleep, mindfulness, physical exercise — and which was then extended to 70,000 employees through a dedicated app. I held several internal events, spoke openly about what had happened to me and the topic was no longer taboo within the bank. I am very proud to have transformed a personal problem into an opportunity to improve the well-being of employees and, in a way, also contribute to changing the public perception of the subject in the United Kingdom. Later, I gave interviews, including to The Times, to show that mental health is like physical health: it can and should be treated without stigma, and recovery is possible.
Personally, I already had healthy lifestyle habits and that helped me recover. But I significantly changed the way I manage my schedule and the way I balance priorities. Today I ensure regular break periods between meetings, I manage my schedule four weeks in advance, always leaving free time in weeks 3 and 4 for important or urgent matters that may arise, I pay special attention to sleep hours and I do not permanently live at “peak” work intensity.
What advice do you have for managers to avoid burn-out?
The advice I leave to managers is simple: don’t ignore the signs, don’t confuse resistance with invulnerability and create conditions in your organizations so that people feel supported. Mental health must be seen as an integral part of leadership and must be approached with the same naturalness as we treat physical health.
“It is important to start by defining immigration policies that are clear, transparent and aligned with the real needs of the labor markets”
He has defended intelligent immigration, that is, receiving the immigrants we need and are able to receive. At a time when the topic is on the political agenda, do you maintain your opinion? What advice do you have for European governments?
Europe and Portugal in particular face profound demographic challenges, lack talent in several areas and need skilled and unskilled workers. The question is not “if” we should welcome immigration, but “how”.
Immigration (just like preventing our young people from having to emigrate) is essential for economic growth, demographic sustainability and the proper functioning of fundamental sectors of our economies. I have always defended intelligent immigration: receiving people with the qualifications we really need and for whom we have dignified and effective cultural integration conditions.
It is important to start by defining immigration policies that are clear, transparent and aligned with the real needs of the labor markets. Second, ensure that there is capacity for integration — from language teaching to access to housing, health and training — because integration is what transforms immigration into economic and social value. And third, communicate clearly to the population: explain why immigration is necessary, what the criteria are and what the benefits are.
I believe that if these three dimensions work together, immigration stops being an issue that divides and becomes a factor of progress.
What quote do you see?
I will tell you three, which combine: “Everything is worth it if the soul is not small”; “If you don’t have ambitious goals, the only certainty is that they won’t be achieved”; “Luck is the combination of preparation and opportunity.”
