Eric Daniels

Eric Daniels was the group chief executive officer (CEO) of London-based Lloyds Banking Group, one of the United Kingdom's largest financial institutions, from 2003 to 2011. After leaving Lloyds, due to losses during the financial crises of 2008-09, he has taken various consultancy positions and been involved in litigation against the bank.

A native American, Eric Daniels has spent much of his financial career abroad.

Born in 1951 in Montana, Daniels earned his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a masters in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975. He began his career with Citibank and, over the next two decades, worked in its Panama, Argentina, Chile and London divisions. In 1998 he went to Travelers Life & Annuity, which had recently been acquired by Citibank, as its chairman and CEO. He joined Lloyds TSB in 2001 as head of retail banking. He became CEO of Lloyds TSB in June 2003, and, after its merger with the Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS), of Lloyds Banking Group in January 2009.

Lloyds is one of the United Kingdom's largest banks. Daniels streamlined the company, selling its New Zealand and Brazil operations to improve profits. Along with then-chairman Sir Victor Blank, Daniels led the purchase of rival bank HBOS in 2008, which initially created multi-billion-dollar losses for Lloyd's – significantly higher (over 10 times) than the £10 billion expected.

What  surprised the Lloyds board was the speed at which the losses happened, due to the unexpectedly sharp contraction of the world economy in the last quarter of 2008 and the early part of 2009. It surprised the British government too, and Daniels was questioned about the banking crisis during a session of the Treasury Select Committee of the House of Commons on February 12, 2009. The deal resulted in the combined bank needing a multi-billion pound bailout and left it 43% owned by taxpayers.

The acquisition made Lloyds the country’s top mortgage lender and the biggest provider of individual bank accounts. And though HBOS’ risky construction loans sent bad-debt charges soaring after the deal, Lloyds' did become profitable again in 2011.

Under social and political pressure, Daniels waived his bonuses for 2008 and 2009. He did not receive an expected bonus of £2.3 million in 2010,following the announcement of a further £6.3 billion loss by Lloyds under his leadership. In September 2010 it was announced that he would be retiring within a year's time, and his departure was finalized in September 2011.

In January 2012, Daniels joined StormHarbour, a three-year-old independent boutique investment bank as principal and senior adviser. He also took a consultancy position with private-equity firm CVC Capital Partners and, in 2016, became a director of Funding Circle, a peer-to-peer lender.

Some fallout from his Lloyds' tenure continued: In February 2012, bank regulators forced him to surrender £580,000 of a £1.45m bonus, after Lloyds'  mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) to customers.

In March 2018, Daniels won a summary ruling against Lloyds over stock awards the bank failed to pay him under a long-term incentive plan. The court ordered the bank to pay him over two million shares, worth around £1.3 million at the current stock price.