Chairman who steered Leeds through choppy waters to retire

Robin Smith, 69, will be replaced by Robin Ashton, a 54-year-old accountant with banking experience, at the mutual’s annual general meeting in March.

Mr Smith became chairman in March 2007.

He told the Yorkshire Post: “I don’t think I could have chosen a more dramatic time. The conditions in which I took over were benign and all sweetness and light.

“Businesses were growing, there was confidence around and then suddenly in August queues formed outside Northern Rock.The waters on the mill pond were as still as possibly could be. Within three months they were a raging torrent.

“The waters have not calmed, the markets remain unpredictable and uncertain.”

Leeds is the UK’s fifth largest building society with assets of nearly £10bn and one of only three societies with a long-term A credit rating.

Mr Smith, the former senior partner of Dipp Lupton Broomhead, a forerunner to DLA Piper, said he was proud that the mutual managed to grow since 2007 in spite of the financial crisis and economic downturn.

“Leeds has performed extremely solidly throughout,” he added. He recalled the run on the Rock and being told of a queue of worried customers forming outside the Morpeth branch of the over-stretched lender, which happened to be opposite a branch of Leeds Building Society.

“News reached me later that there was a queue outside Leeds – they were paying money in that they had taken out of Northern Rock.”

The board at Leeds quickly realised that the first run on a bank in 100 years signalled trouble ahead and resolved to concentrate on security, dependability and maintenance of trust, said Mr Smith.

The society also reduced its reliance on the wholesale funding markets and increased retail deposits to fund its future lending to homebuyers.

He said: “When things are tough you have to concentrate on the basics.

“The basics for a building society or bank are to retain the confidence of your customers – the people you do business with – and the confidence of the general public. We set about making sure we did that.”

Mr Smith, the son of a prominent Leeds banker, started his legal career in the city in 1963.

Since then, he said the professional classes of Leeds have become increasingly commercial, which has led to greater self-interest, a loss of collegiate fellow feeling and more insecurity.

But he suggested one positive that could arise from the current banking crisis might be the return of the professional banker “who has duties to customers which transcend the commercial self-interest of the individual and organisation”.

Mr Smith is well known at Headingley; he is vice chairman of Yorkshire County Cricket Club and a past president.

His replacement Robin Ashton became a non-executive member of the board in April 2011.

Mr Ashton qualified as a chartered accountant with Coopers & Lybrand in Leeds and spent his career in retail financial services, holding chief executive roles at Provident Financial and London Scottish Bank.

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