Sir Brian Gerald Pearse (born 23 August 1933) is a British businessman, and the former chief executive of Midland Bank in the early 1990s.

Early life

He was born in

West Derby West Derby ( ) is an affluent suburb of Liverpool, England. It is located East of the city and is also a Liverpool City Council ward. At the 2011 Census, the population was 14,382. History West Derby Mentioned in the ''Domesday Book'', West ...

, where he grew up. He had two sisters who remained in Liverpool. He supported Everton. He attended

St Edward's College St Edward's College, England is a co-educational Catholic school with academy status in the UK located in the Liverpool suburb of West Derby. Founded in 1853 as the Catholic Institute, the college was formerly a boys grammar school run by the ...

, a Catholic

direct grant grammar school A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in the United Kingdom that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

from 1945-50.

Career

He started at Martins Bank at the age of 17, for 15 years, starting at branch on Victoria St in Liverpool, moving to Leicester and Birmingham.

Barclays Bank

Martins Bank became part of Barclays. In 1977 he was regional general manager for the East Midlands and East Anglia. From 1979-82 he was General Manager of Barclays Bank UK, after the chief executive of Barclays Bank International in the US. In 1987 he was finance director of Barclays.

Midland Bank

Sir Kit McMahon (aged 64) left as chairman and chief executive of Midland Bank on 5 March 1991, after Midland was the first British bank in fifty years to cut its dividend (by a half). Midland had a 90% drop in profits to £63m. He became chief executive of Midland Bank on 6 March 1991. Midland employed 60,000 people worldwide. He was aged 57 when he became chief executive. Five per cent of Midland customers had a mortgage with the bank; he wanted that to be 25%. At 9pm on Thursday 22 August 1991 he appeared in an hour-long

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

documentary entitled ''The Decline of the Midland Bank''; the bank had suffered from the decline of the UK's manufacturing base, so the bank had made international acquisitions to counteract this. Midland had been the world's biggest bank in the 1930s.

Crocker National Bank Crocker National Bank was a United States bank headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was acquired by and merged into Wells Fargo Bank in 1986. History The bank traces its history to the Woolworth National Bank in San Francisco. Charles ...

, of California, had been bought by Midland in 1981 for £485m; it was sold in 1986 for a billion-dollar loss. In mid-March 1992 HSBC announced its take-over of the Midland Bank. HSBC had bought its first stake in 1987 for 14.7% of Midland Bank, costing £383m. The take-over deal went through on Thursday 9 July 1992. He left Midland in March 1994, with the former chairman of BP becoming the chairman in June 1991. He was replaced by his deputy Keith Whitson. The chairman Sir Peter Walters left at the same time, being succeeded by Sir William Purves.

Personal life

He is married with three children. He lived in a village near Guildford with wife Pat.''Liverpool Echo'' Wednesday 27 March 1991, page 6 'The life of Brian' He was knighted in the

1994 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1994 were appointments by most of the sixteen Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and honorary ones to citizens of other c ...

References