Lloyds 10 years on: António Horta-Osório makes his exit

António Horta-Osório makes no apology for the unbridled optimism that has defined his 10 years running Lloyds Banking Group. Critics say he leaves it over-exposed to Brexit and dwindling interest margins. But, as he prepares to move to Switzerland to become chairman of Credit Suisse, Horta-Osório tells Euromoney that Lloyds’ greatest days could still be ahead of it.

At the end of April, António Horta-Osório will be leaving a bank – and a country – that he has made his own.

A decade ago, when he left Spain’s Banco Santander to become chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, he arrived at a bailed-out muddle of an institution that was full of toxic assets and dangerously reliant on short-term wholesale funding. During the 2010s Horta-Osório turned Lloyds into a fully private-sector lender with coherence and confidence about its future.

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