ING Barings, the investment bank formed last year out of the collapsed
Barings Bank, is set to appoint its first head of corporate
communications before the end of this year.
The company has been using management headhunters Goddard Kay Rogers to
trawl the market for the last six weeks and is considering journalists
and consultancy staff as well as seasoned in-house PR staff for the job.
Two candidates have so far been interviewed.
Based in London, the new recruit will manage and co-ordinate the work of
five existing communications staff across four distinct functions: media
relations, internal communications, corporate entertaining and
advertising.
ING Barings was set up in March 1995 after Dutch bank Internationale
Nederlanden Groep (ING) bought Barings Bank and its investment arm
Baring Asset Management. The bank crashed in March last year as a result
of the trading activities of Nick Leeson, which left Barings with pounds
860 million of liabilities.
Communications for the former Barings Bank was managed by Francis Baring
- now head of corporate communications at SBC Warburg. A cousin of the
bank’s chairman Peter Baring, Francis quit the 233-year-old family firm
in May.
The new head of communications for ING Barings will take responsibility
for the investment bank but not for Baring Asset Management, which
operates independently.
ING Barings has only recently turned its attention to public relations
issues after months of internal restructuring, which last year saw the
dismissal of 21 managers in charge of derivative dealings.
A source close to the bank said: ‘They have only just got through the
general chaos associated with the crash and being acquired, and now they
can afford to be more proactive about communications.’
It remains unclear if part of the new communication chief’s brief will
be to recruit external PR agencies. ING Barings does not currently have
a retained contract with any consultancy, although Barings and ING
worked with Cardew and Co and Dewe Rogerson respectively during the
Leeson crisis.
