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* Hampton to join drugmaker's board in January
* To take over as chairman by Sept. 1, 2015 at latest
* Appointment comes amid pressure for change at drugmaker
* RBS in process on finding new chairman for bank (Adds analyst comment, Breakingviews link)
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline confirmed on Thursday it had chosen Philip Hampton, whocurrently chairs Royal Bank of Scotland, as its nextchairman.
Hampton will take the helm at Britain's top pharmaceuticalsgroup at a testing time. GSK was hit last week by a record $489million fine in China for bribing doctors and has warned onprofits in 2014 due to weak sales of its core respiratory drugs.
He will join the board in January, become deputy chairman onApril 1 and chairman with effect from Sept. 1, 2015 - or earlier if released from other commitments.
The long handover reflects the difficulty of replacingHampton at RBS ahead of next May's UK general election, giventhe fact the bank is 80-percent state-owned and the governmentwill take a keen interest in the appointment.
Reuters reported on Monday that GSK was under pressure tomake changes, including a possible early replacement of thecurrent chairman, Chris Gent, as a result of its problems whichhave undermined investor confidence.
A person close to the process had previously said thatHampton was set to be named as GSK's chairman this week.
Several investors see the board change at GSK as overdue --Gent has been in the job for nine years -- and analysts atGoldman Sachs believe a new chairman could "kick-start" change.
Gent, best-known for leading mobile phone company Vodafone during a period of rapid growth, was due to retire bythe end of 2015 and the drugmaker said it had been planning forhis succession over the last two years.
Before RBS, Hampton chaired supermarket chain Sainsbury and was group finance director at Lloyds TSB, BT Group,BG Group, British Gas and British Steel.
GSK will be hoping that the move placates investors whilegiving its pressured Chief Executive Andrew Witty time to turnaround the business.
Witty, a veteran GSK insider who was appointed CEO by Gentin 2008, has been viewed as a star manager for much of hissix-year tenure. But he has been tarnished by the China scandal,which forced GSK to make an abject apology to the Chinese peoplelast week.
As the new chairman a key task for Hampton will be to helpsteer the drugmaker back to sustainable growth and, in thelonger term, potentially finding an eventual successor to Witty.
GSK's share price performance has lagged badly in recentmonths. While the Stoxx Europe 600 healthcare sector index has risen by around a fifth this year on optimism overnew drugs, GSK's shares have lost 11 percent as forecasts forits sales and earnings have fallen.
The company unveiled a far-reaching asset swap deal withNovartis in April that will build up its strengths invaccines and consumer health, in exchange for exiting the hotarea of cancer medicine.
But many analysts believe that even after the Novartis dealcloses next year the new-look GSK will still struggle to grow asrapidly as its peers.
Possible actions to improve matters could include furthercost-cutting and allocating more capital to buying in promisingnew drugs, Goldman analysts said, with a long-term option beingto sell off the vaccines or consumer health operations.
PARACHUTED IN
Hampton has been chairman of RBS since 2009 when he wasparachuted in to help rescue the bank following its 45 billionpounds ($74 billion) bailout during the financial crisis.
He has previously said that a chairman should typicallyserve between five and seven years at a listed company and isexpected to stay at RBS until a successor is appointed,according to industry sources.
Hampton has led RBS through a turbulent period of transitionduring which it shed assets worth 1 trillion pounds to riditself of toxic loans built up during a period of aggressivelending in the run-up to the financial crisis.
However, the bank's attempts to return to health have beenheld back by the legacy of past misconduct, which included finesof $612 million for the fixing of benchmark interest rates andaccusations over how it treated struggling small firms.
Hampton had hoped to oversee the start of RBS's return tofull private ownership but that prospect is still seen to beseveral years away with its shares trading well below the pricethe government bought them at, leaving taxpayers sitting on aloss of 13 billion pounds. (1 US dollar = 0.6117 British pounds) (Additional reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Pravin Charand Greg Mahlich)
