The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has lost a senior member of its in-house legal team, with banking lawyer Robin Macpherson, who headed legal for large corporate and sectors for the UK and Western Europe, leaving the bank. He joins real estate fund Valad Europe as head of risk.
Valad Europe, part of real estate manager Cromwell Property Group, hired Macpherson as head of risk in a role which also comprises the position of general counsel and compliance officer.
At RBS, Macpherson led a team of more than 20 lawyers and responsibilities included co-ordinating the provision of advice from across the legal teams on product matters, and advising on capital portfolio trades.
He held several managerial roles at the bank, having joined from Travers Smith in 2009, including as senior manager (while on secondment from Travers) to RBS’s non-core division, and as senior manager for RBS Legal, where he advised on costs, negative LIBOR, Bank of England liquidity schemes and online gaming risk appetite.
Now at Valad, which manages under €4bn of real estate assets, Macpherson is responsible for legal advice and compliance support to the European business and for its corporate governance and risk management framework.
He reports directly to chief executive David Kirkby, and is a member of the company’s ten-strong executive management group. He also chairs its European risk committee and sits on the debt and investment committees.
Kirkby said Macpherson’s appointment demonstrates the company’s ‘commitment to implementing robust and transparent risk management procedures across the business particularly in light of increasing regulation facing the industry.’
As revealed by Legal Business in July, RBS’s legal division has undergone a reshuffle this year, after reviewing its 400-strong team to control costs and drive efficiencies – a move which was said to potentially lead to staff redundancies.
Other senior legal departures in the last few years has included deputy GC Rushad Abadan who joined insurer Standard Life as its GC in early 2016, while the British bank also lost its EMEA head of financial crime, Carolina Garces-Monterrubio, to HSBC at the start of the 2015.
Other recent moves in the banking industry this week includes Standard Chartered which hired top regulatory lawyer from Chris Allen from Barclays’ legal team. Allen, is set to join the investment bank as its new general counsel for clients and products.
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk
Read more: ‘Client profile: Michael Shaw, The Royal Bank of Scotland’