Paul Myners, Baron Myners, (1 April 1948 – 16 January 2022) was a British businessman and politician. In October 2008 he was elevated to the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

as a life peer and was appointed

City Minister The position of City Minister is a United Kingdom Government mid-level ministerial post in HM Treasury. The minister is responsible for the British financial services sector which is commonly known as ' the City'. The post is normally held in co ...

in the

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Government of

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony B ...

, serving until May 2010. As City Minister Myners was responsible for overseeing the financial services sector during the

global financial crisis Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

and its aftermath, including leading the controversial

2008 United Kingdom bank rescue package In the period September 2007 to December 2009, during the events now widely known as the Global Financial Crisis, the UK government enacted a number of financial interventions in support of the UK banking sector and four UK banks in particular. ...

. Myners sat in the House of Lords as a Labour peer until 2014, resigning to become a non-affiliated member before joining the crossbench group in 2015. Myners began working in the financial sector in 1974 at

N M Rothschild & Sons Rothschild & Co is a multinational investment bank and financial services company, and the flagship of the Rothschild banking group controlled by the French and British branches of the Rothschild family. The banking business of the firm covers th ...

and was appointed to the board of directors in 1977. Subsequently, he held a number of high-profile business roles, including as chairman of

Gartmore Group Gartmore Group Limited was a British-based investment management business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange. History The Company was founded in 1969 by British & Commonwealth and acquired by Banque Indosuez in 1989.Land Securities Land Securities Group plc is the largest commercial property development and investment company in the United Kingdom. The firm became a real estate investment trust (REIT) when REITs were introduced in the United Kingdom in January 2007. It is ...

and

Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...

. He also served in a number of third sector and public service posts, including chairman of the trustees of the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, chairman of the

Guardian Media Group Guardian Media Group plc (GMG) is a British-based mass media company owning various media operations including ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer''. The group is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the financial and e ...

, chairman of the

Low Pay Commission The Low Pay Commission (LPC) is an independent body in the United Kingdom, established in 1997, that advises the government on the National Minimum Wage. It is an advisory non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and I ...

and non-executive director of the Bank of England.

Early life and education

Myners was adopted at the age of two by a Cornish family, and grew up in

Truro Truro (; kw, Truru) is a cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its population was 18,766 in the 2011 census. People of Truro ...

, Cornwall. His adopting father was a self-employed butcher and fisherman and his mother a hairdresser. He had no siblings. He attended

Truro School Truro School is a coeducational independent day and boarding school located in the city of Truro, Cornwall, England. It is the largest coeducational independent school in Cornwall with over 1050 pupils from pre-prep to sixth form. It is a membe ...

, an independent Methodist school, on a scholarship. He graduated from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, Institute of Education, with a first class honours degree in education and a certificate in education (teaching qualification), and became a secondary school teacher in Wandsworth with the

Inner London Education Authority The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was an ad hoc local education authority for the City of London and the 12 Inner London boroughs from 1965 until its abolition in 1990. The authority was reconstituted as a directly elected body corp ...

(1971–72). He left teaching after two years and subsequently joined ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' as a financial journalist moving into the financial sector in 1974 as a junior portfolio manager at

Career

Business

After serving on the Rothschild board of directors from 1977 to 1985, Myners moved to pension fund manager

Gartmore Group Gartmore Group Limited was a British-based investment management business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange. History The Company was founded in 1969 by British & Commonwealth and acquired by Banque Indosuez in 1989.assets under management rose from £1.2bn in 1985 to £75bn, with Myners personally earning an estimated £30m.Profile: Lord Myners
'' Daily Telegraph'', 28 February 2009 After retiring from Gartmore in 2000, he chose to focus on a wider range of interests, acting as non-executive director and chairman of a number of companies and third sector institutions. From 2002 to 2007 Myners was chairman of Aspen Insurance Holdings, a Bermuda-based insurance company. Myners was appointed interim chairman of retailer Marks & Spencer in 2004 in the midst of a takeover battle with Phillip Green's

Arcadia Group Arcadia Group Ltd (formerly Arcadia Group plc and, until 1998, Burton Group plc) was a British multinational retailing company headquartered in London, England. It was best known for being the previous parent company of British Home Stores (BH ...

, leaving the position two years later in 2006 after successfully resisting the hostile merger attempt. From 2006 to 2008 he was chairman of Liberty Ermitage, a fund-of-funds manager. and

Land Securities Land Securities Group plc is the largest commercial property development and investment company in the United Kingdom. The firm became a real estate investment trust (REIT) when REITs were introduced in the United Kingdom in January 2007. It is ...

Public service and philanthropy

Myners compiled reports on institutional investment (the

Myners Report ''Institutional Investment in the UK: A Review'' (the ''Myners Report'') was a report to HM Treasury in March 2001 on institutional investors. It was delivered by Paul Myners. Government was concerned that institutional investors were giving insu ...

, questioning whether pension funds were acting in the interests of their beneficiaries), equity capital raising and governance for

HM Treasury His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury), occasionally referred to as the Exchequer, or more informally the Treasury, is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for developing and executing the government's public finance policy and ...

and the Department of Trade and Industry wo reports before 1997 and three after This report gave rise to the Myners Principles which formed the basis for good stewardship of the investment of pension funds and endowments. The Myners Report also made the case for investors taking a more active interest in the ownership of investee companies ('activism') and argued that investment banks should no longer be paid for research by transaction commission, a practice which he argued was misaligned with good ownership and lacking in transparency and accountability. In 2000 Myners became Chairman of the

, publisher of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' and ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'' newspapers and was appointed a non-executive director of the Bank of England. Between August 2007 and October 2008 he was Chairman of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA), the body tasked under the Pensions Act 2007 with implementing the UK Government's plans for a new national pensions savings scheme for private sector workers on low and moderate incomes. He resigned this position on his appointment as a minister. PADA morphed into NEST, the National Employment Savings Trust, the national workplace pension scheme established by the Government which will become the UK's largest pension scheme. Myners also served as chairman of the

from 2006 until 2008, as a member of the Commission on English Prisons, established by the

Howard League for Penal Reform The Howard League for Penal Reform is a registered charity in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest penal reform organisation in the world, named after John Howard. It was founded as the Howard Association in 1866 and changed its name in 1921, ...

, and the

Green Fiscal Commission The Green Fiscal Commission (GFC) was a British body set up in 2007 to examine the best way of implementing green taxes (also known as ecotax) in the United Kingdom. GFC includes members from business, academia and the three main British politic ...

, and was a member of the Commission on Vulnerable Employment sponsored by the TUC, and a trustee of the

Smith Institute The Smith Institute is a left-wing think tank in the United Kingdom. It was founded in memory of John Smith (Labour Party leader), John Smith Queen's Counsel, QC Member of Parliament, MP, former leader of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. His ...

, an education and public policy think tank. He was Chairman of the Trustees of the Tate, a past trustee at the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

and the Royal Academy Trust, trustee of the Charity Aid Foundation and served on the Advisory Council of St. Paul's Cathedral Institute. Myners resigned from these posts when he became a Minister.

Government minister

On 3 October 2008 Myners was appointed Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury (a position commonly referred to as City Minister) in

, in Prime Minister

ministry Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian ...

.Brook, Stephe
"Paul Myners leaving GMG to take government role"
''

'', 3 October 2008, retrieved 4 October 2008 He was created a Life Peer on 16 October 2008, gazetted as "Baron Myners, of Truro in the County of Cornwall". Although never active in politics before his appointment as a finance minister, ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' reported that "a Labour Cabinet insider" said of him that "for a City grandee he has a genuine instinct for social justice."Paul Myners: Man with a plan
''

'', 11 October 2008 Myners never donated to the Labour Party, but in 2007 he offered £12,700 to

's leadership campaign. As City Minister Myners had responsibility for leading the £500bn

in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, as well as for a number of major agencies sponsored by the Treasury including The Debt Management Office, National Savings & Investment,

UK Financial Investments UK Financial Investments (UKFI) was a limited company set up in November 2008 and mandated by the British government to manage HM Treasury's shareholdings in the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) and in UK Asset Resolution, which held the residu ...

and the Asset Protection Agency. Myners also handled the routine ministerial interface between the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority. In February 2009 Lord Myners was at the centre of controversy concerning the amount of pension paid to

Fred Goodwin Frederick Anderson Goodwin FRSE FCIBS (born 17 August 1958) is a Scottish chartered accountant and former banker who was Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) between 2001 and 2009. From 2000 to 2008, he pre ...

, the former chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Myners said that he did not approve the details of Goodwin's pension settlement when it was arranged the previous autumn as part of the government's bailout of RBS, pointing out that this was a matter for the Board of RBS. However, former RBS chairman Sir Tom McKillop disputed Myners' account in later evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, insisting that "every element" of Goodwin's financial compensation on leaving the bank had been fully discussed with Myners. The Treasury Committee concluded in their report that "…it would have been far better if Lord Myners had given a stronger, clearer direction of Government requirements for a bank in receipt of public funds and had assured himself by demanding to be kept informed of the detailed negotiations that were taking place…. It would, we believe, have been open to Lord Myners to insist that Goodwin should have been dismissed…. The RBS Board had shown itself to be incompetent in the management of the bank, steering it towards catastrophe… We suspect that Lord Myners' City background, and naiveté as to the public perception of these matters, may have led him to place too much trust in an RBS Board." Summary pp3-4; full text paragraphs 121–123 The report of the Treasury Select Committee was criticised by many. The respected commentator Hugo Dixon wrote in the Daily Telegraph and the Breaking Views website that the Committee should have got ‘a sense of proportion’. He wrote that during the same weekend of the Goodwin pension issue Myners and two Treasury Civil Servants – John Kingman and Tom Scholar – ‘managed to pull off a remarkable feat in pretty much every way. Every other item in that list was ticked off. None was a trivial exercise. All items required attention to complex details; most required negotiations with third parties and banging heads together. Few other Ministers would have been able to accomplish what Myners did that weekend.’ In a separate paper to the Treasury Select Committee, Slaughter and May partner Charles Randell, who accompanied Myners at meetings with RBS noted that Myners had insisted that Goodwin should not be rewarded for failure and all action should be taken to mitigate cost. The RBS representatives at that meeting on 11 October did not indicate that the Board of RBS had significantly enhanced Goodwin's pension entitlement 24hrs earlier as a reward for his contribution to the Bank.

After government

After the Labour Party's loss in the 2010 general election in May 2010, Myners remained in the House of Lords. Until 2014 Myners served as a backbench Labour peer, before resigning to sit as a non-affiliated member and from 7 July 2015 as a crossbencher. Myners joined the board of RIT Capital Partners PLC, an investment fund chaired and sponsored by Lord (Jacob) Rothschild, and later that year he became a Trustee of ARK, the charity supported by London's major hedge fund managers. In February 2011, Lord Myners became chairman and a partner of Autonomous Research LLP, an independent equity research firm. In June 2011, Lord Myners became chairman and a partner of Cevian Capital (UK) LLP, the UK arm of Cevian Capital, the largest active ownership (or activist) manager in Europe. In October 2012, Lord Myners was appointed President of the Howard League for Penal Reform, replacing the outgoing Lord Carlile of Berriew QC. In March 2013, Lord Myners joined the board of OJSC MegaFon, a London-listed company that is one of the three largest mobile operators in Russia. Myners was appointed to represent the interest of independent shareholders and served on the Board until the end of 2017. Lord Myners was the chairman of Platform Acquisition Holdings Ltd, which in May 2013 listed on the London Stock Exchange, raising $905 million earmarked for acquiring a target business expected to have an enterprise value of between $750 million and $2.5 billion. Platform was a Special Purpose Acquisition Company or SPAC (referred to in the US as a blank cheque corporation). He subsequently Chaired a number of other SPACs, including one that acquired the worldwide operations of Burger King and another that bought the European operations of Birds Eye and Findus. In December 2013 he joined the Board of the troubled Co-operative Group as senior independent director to produce and publish for the members an independent report on governance. It was brought close to collapse in the year by losses in its banking subsidiary. The Co op is the largest convenience store retailer in the UK. Myners limited his payment for this work to £1. On 1 February 2015 Lord Myners was appointed Chair of the Court of Governors and Council of the

London School of Economics and Political Science The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

, succeeding

Peter Sutherland Peter Denis Sutherland (25 April 1946 – 7 January 2018) was an Irish businessman, barrister and Fine Gael politician who served as UN Special Representative for International Migration from 2006 to 2017. He was known for serving in a variety ...

. In 2016, Lord Myners took up role as University Chancellor of the

University of Exeter , mottoeng = "We Follow the Light" , established = 1838 - St Luke's College1855 - Exeter School of Art1863 - Exeter School of Science 1955 - University of Exeter (received royal charter) , type = Public , ...

from Baroness Benjamin. In 2020 Lord Myners was active in seeking funding for the Stadium for Cornwall.

Personal life and death

He was first married to Tessa Stanford-Smith, a school teacher, from 1972 to 1993, and then to Alison Macleod, former chair of the

Contemporary Art Society The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) is an independent charity that champions the collecting of outstanding contemporary art and craft for UK museum collections. Since its founding in 1910 the organisation has donated over 10,000 works to museums ...

and trustee of The Royal Academy Development Trust.Paul Myners CBE
HM Treasury Ministerial Profiles, retrieved 23 February 2009 He had four daughters and a son through two marriages. He lived in London and had a cottage near Falmouth, Cornwall. Myners died at

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Chelsea and Westminster Hospital is a 430-bed teaching hospital located in Chelsea, London. Although the hospital has been at its present site since only 1993, the hospital has a rich history in that it serves as the new site for the Westminst ...

in London, on 16 January 2022, at the age of 73.

Awards

Myners was awarded a

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 2001. He also received an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the

and was a visiting fellow at Nuffield College Oxford. He was also an Executive Fellow of

London Business School London Business School (LBS) is a business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LBS was founded in 1964 and awards post-graduate degrees (Master's degrees in management and finance, MBA and PhD). Its motto is " ...

. In July 2010 he was elected chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Corporate Governance and in November 2010 was admitted as an Honorary Fellow of the

Association of Corporate Treasurers The Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) is the international professional body specialising in the profession of corporate treasury. It was founded in 1979 and was awarded a Royal Charter on 1 January 2013. It is both an examining body, provid ...

References

External links

News Item from Independent newspaper 11 Oct 2008

News Item from Guardian newspaper

Helps charities after Kaupthing disaster
{{DEFAULTSORT:Myners, Paul 1948 births 2022 deaths 20th-century British journalists 20th-century English businesspeople 21st-century English businesspeople Alumni of the University of London British business executives Chancellors of the University of Exeter Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Crossbench life peers English adoptees English financial writers English money managers Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford Labour Party (UK) life peers N M Rothschild & Sons people NatWest Group people People educated at Truro School People from Truro Schoolteachers from Cornwall The Co-operative Group The Daily Telegraph people The Guardian people Life peers created by Elizabeth II