Pair promoted to senior positions in bank’s specialist real estate lending teams.

Lloyds Bank has promoted two bankers to new positions as leaders of two of its six specialist real estate lending teams. Richard MacDowel has been appointed as head of major private groups, replacing Gabrielle Berring, who left earlier this year to run real estate lending at Metro Bank. The major private group looks after real estate companies and operators with portfolios of more than £250 mln (€287 mln). MacDowel will also continue to lead Lloyds’ ‘green’ banking initiative. It was set up two years ago with £1 bn (€1.15 bn) of balance sheet ringfenced, for discounted loans for property clients, which improve their buildings’ energy efficiency and cut carbon emissions. Separately, the bank has confirmed Klaus Betz-Vais as head of institutional clients, a role he has been acting in. Betz-Vais’s team works with sovereign wealth funds, investment managers, insurance companies and other large money managers. Lloyds’ other four key specialist roles are: head of private groups with under £250 mln assets under management, led by Richard Heath; Graeme Alfille-Cook, head of developers; Ian Goldsworthy, head of listed property companies; and Pierre Gervasi, head of international. In further banking moves, Peter Clayton has left Santander to join Richard Heath’s division at Lloyds. And former head of real estate at Santander, Susan Geddes, has poached Santander’s head of real estate credit risk, Alan Aimers. He joins her at private wealth group LJ Partnership, in the structured finance team as head of credit.