Kemp-Welch to head Stock Exchange

JOHN KEMP-WELCH will leave blue chip stockbrokers Cazenove in April to succeed Sir Andrew Hugh Smith as chairman of the London Stock Exchange, writes John Willcock.

The appointment of an acknowledged City heavyweight will boost confidence in the exchange, badly dented by the Taurus share settlement fiasco last year. Mr Kemp- Welch will join Michael Lawrence, former finance director of the Prudential, who recently took over as the exchange's chief executive.

Mr Kemp-Welch, 57, was educated at Winchester College and worked at Hoare & Co before joining Cazenove in 1959, where he became joint senior partner in 1980. Regarded as one of the 'great and the good', he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, trustee and chairman of the King's Medical Research Trust and a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

The exchange is currently debating its role in Crest, the replacement for the abandoned Taurus automated share settlement system, which is being designed by the Bank of England.

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