Blackfriar: Female pairing makes formidable team for Farnell

In fact we can’t think of a single female one. [Answers to [email protected] if you can think of any. The best answer will get taken out for drinks by our city team when you’re next in London.]

Think about it. When did a female chief exec or chairman have to take out a super-injunction to prevent tawdry details of her affair being spread all over the tabloids?

When did a female boss get dragged in for a grilling by the Treasury Select Committee?

When did a woman say after her company caused one of the biggest environmental disasters in history – “We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back” – as former BP chief executive Tony Hayward said following the oil spill disaster that claimed 11 lives and spewed millions of gallons of toxic oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

When Blackfriar mentioned this to colleagues (male, by the way), they sniffed and said the only reason there are no high profile female director disasters is there are so few female directors.

This is a fair point.

So it was interesting to see yesterday’s appointment of former BUPA chief executive Valerie Gooding as chairman of Leeds-based electronics distributor Premier Farnell.

Ms Gooding brings a wealth of global experience, including 10 years as chief executive of BUPA, a period during which the group more than trebled in size and delivered record profits. She has also held a number of senior roles at British Airways.

Ms Gooding will join forces with Premier Farnell’s chief executive Harriet Green, the woman who has overseen a transformation in the company’s fortunes.

Ms Gooding joins Premier Farnell at a time when the group is seeing its best annual sales and profits for a decade as the shift to the internet and emerging markets pays off. Ms Green – now five years into the job – says she is confident of delivering further strong growth in 2011.

Blackfriar noticed a couple of very interesting points about Premier Farnell’s announcement yesterday.

Apparently Ms Gooding will continue as a non-executive director on the boards of Standard Chartered and the BBC, but will stand down from the board of Sainsbury’s “to give her the time to devote to the chairmanship of Premier Farnell”.

Hmm, no “going plural” and garnering as many non-exec directorships as she can get her hands on for Ms Gooding. Gentlemen take notice.

Instead Ms Gooding said: “This is an exciting appointment for me. I have watched Premier Farnell’s evolution with interest in recent years... I look forward to building upon it with the board, Harriet Green and the wider executive team to deliver continued profitable growth.”

Ms Gooding and Ms Green should make a formidable team.

Lloyds managed to produce no fewer than three news stories yesterday. It’s busy times for the part state-owned bank.

The first was that is to axe another 360 jobs and transfer a further 140 to another company. The bank has announced a whopping 27,500 job losses since the integration between Lloyds TSB and HBOS.

The second was that Lloyds’ Bank of Scotland division has been given a £3.5m fine from the Financial Services Authority for failures in how it handled certain customer complaints.

Of course this is small fry against the shock £3.2bn charge Lloyds is taking to cover claims for mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).

The third story is we have a date for the grand unveiling of the new strategy from Lloyds’ chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio.

On June 30 we will learn what is to be hived off to ensure Lloyds and its two super brands Halifax and Bank of Scotland have a strong future.

But people will be just as interested in who will buy the 600 plus branches Lloyds has to sell to appease European regulators.

Analysts believe the sale of the 600 branches could interest Virgin Money, Tesco, new bank venture NBNK and Yorkshire Bank owner National Australia Bank (NAB)

But Blackfriar wonders if NAB really has the stomach to buy these branches.

Australian investors were incensed by last week’s news that Yorkshire and Clydesdale Banks’ £101m half-year profit will be all but wiped out by the £100m provision to cover PPI claims.

Sceptical Australian shareholders are wondering how much more money the UK operations will cost NAB.

They are unlikely to sanction the purchase of another 600 branches in a market that is seen as a basketcase in comparison to the stable Australian market.

Which of course re-opens the old question of whether NAB will pull out of the UK when the banking sector finally does pick up.