BEIS0001117
BEISO001117
Department for
Business, Energy
& Industrial Strategy
To: Secretary of State CC: Andrew Griffiths MP
Glenn Hall
Mark Russell
Jaee Samant
From: Alex Chisholm, Permanent Secretary
Date: 2"¢ February 2018
Post Office Ltd NED Appointments
1. I wanted to add my views on top of those expressed by UKGI, on the proposed
replacement of the shareholder representative director to the POL Board.
2. As you are aware from the funding discussions we had over the course of last
year, POL is becoming increasingly commercial, profitable and ambitious. This
means that the nature of its activities is beginning to switch from making good
previous long term underinvestment as it emerged from Royal Mail's ownership,
to more proactively investing in revenue growing opportunities, taking a
measured view of risk. My priority is to ensure that the £210m that the
Department has made available is invested wisely. Whilst the POL Board already
has a good breadth of commercial knowledge and experience, I want to ensure
that our representative on the Board also has very strong commercial credentials
to ensure we hold POL’s management to account through our membership of the
Board.
3. UKGI’s proposed candidate, Tom Cooper, was recruited alongside our
shareholder representative on NDA's Board, Candida Morley, in the last UKGI
director recruitment round. As the submission notes, Tom’s last role was Global
Co-Chairman of M&A at Deutsche Bank, chairing the Bank's valuation committee
and also sitting on transaction review panels. It is this commercial oversight,
including the ability to step back and review a proposed course of commercial
action, that will provide POL’s management with an increased degree of scrutiny,
to ensure our interests and investments are protected whilst using those funds
profitably for the benefit of the business.
4. Post Office is now stronger than it has been for many years, and I consider that
this appointment gives the Department the best chance of ensuring that that trend
continues.
5. I hope you will soon have a chance to meet Tom. In the meantime he is due to
meet with Glenn on Monday, and met with Andrew earlier this week.
Alex Chisholm