Alliance & Leicester courts City with strategy for growth

Alliance & Leicester, the high street bank, will today unveil a sweeping shake-up in strategy and management structure in an attempt to put behind it the heritage of the former cost-cutting chief executive, Peter White, and focus on growth.

Alliance & Leicester, the high street bank, will today unveil a sweeping shake-up in strategy and management structure in an attempt to put behind it the heritage of the former cost-cutting chief executive, Peter White, and focus on growth.

The moves, which are likely to involve increases in IT expenditure and a reorganisation of the bank to focus on customer groups rather than on product or business lines, follows the poaching of Peter McNamara from Lloyds-TSB earlier this year.

Mr McNamara, who has taken the role of managing director, has been working with John Windeler, the executive chairman, on a new strategy aimed at restoring City confidence in the bank, which has been seen as a prime take-over candidate because of its perceived failure to respond to the internet threat. Mr White was deposed in a boardroom coup last year following increasing dissatisfaction about his allegedly autocratic style of management. Alliance & Leicester last night refused to comment but denied that job losses or a deal with another party were on the cards. A&L had been expected to come forward with plans for an internet bank but decided not to go down the road taken by rivals Halifax and Abbey National.