(Adds details, quotes)
By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Jeremy Masding will step down as
chief executive of Permanent TSB (PTSB) during 2020
having returned the Irish bank to profit, and to the local stock
market, during his eight years in charge.
The mortgage lender, the smallest of the three
domestically-owned banks that survived Ireland's financial crash
a decade ago, said on Thursday it had started a process to
select a new CEO, with the date of Masding's departure yet to be
determined.
It gave no reason for his departure and did not say if he
would receive any kind of a severance package, but Masding said
he was excited at the prospect of taking on new challenges in
Ireland or internationally.
The Welshman took over the then banking arm of nationalised
bancassurer Irish Life & Permanent in February 2012 as the
struggling unit sought to convince the country's then EU/IMF
bailout lenders to allow it remain as a standalone business.
Three years later, the bank became the first Irish lender to
launch a public share sale since the crisis, returning 400
million euros ($444.5 million) of its 2.7 billion euro state
bailout by cutting the government's shareholding to 75%.
PTSB was also hit with a record 21 million euro fine this
year, the largest ever handed down by the country's central
bank, for overcharging mortgage customers after it became the
first Irish lender caught up in the sector-wide scandal.
"Jeremy and his team oversaw a very complex and challenging
turnaround which has restored Permanent TSB to a position of
significance in the Irish banking market," Permanent TSB
Chairman Robert Elliott said in a statement.
"Jeremy leaves the bank in an immeasurably stronger position
than when he took up the role."
Masding, who spent most of his career with Barclays
before moving to Dublin, is the longest-serving of Ireland's
current bank CEOs.
($1 = 0.8998 euros)
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin
Editing by Edmund Blair and David Holmes)