IN THE febrile sub-sector that is part-nationalised banking, it feels sometimes that Royal Bank of Scotland is nearly as much about perception as substance in these post-apocalyptic days.
So it is arguably a bit early in the loss-making bank's convalescence for chairman Sir Philip Hampton to become a non-executive director at mining giant Anglo American.
To critics, the move may be redolent of a hospital visitor glancing at his wat
ch and departing the patient's bedside just a little too quickly.
It is also understandable that some institutional investors are miffed at apparently not being consulted about the Anglo appointment beforehand, even though the Royal is now 84 per cent owned by the taxpayer.
Cavalier treatment of minority shareholders feeling squeezed by the UK government's holding is not clever. These institutions are probably as much, if not more, annoyed about this lack of consultation than the fear that Hampton may be spreading himself too thinly, too quickly.
But once you get past the knee-jerk "perception" that this is the wrong thing at the wrong time, I doubt it will have any negative effect on the substance of RBS's efforts to restore itself to health.
It would have been far worse if Hampton had tried to continue in his chairman's role at Sainsbury's after taking the RBS job. He knew this was not a runner and stepped down from the supermarket group's board without any external pressure.
A lower-tier non-exec role at Anglo is far less of a diversion from his RBS duties than the chairman's role at a FTSE 100 household name.
In addition, Hampton's job at RBS is to question and periodically challenge executive decision-making. For that, the chairman does not need to be on chief executive Stephen Hester's back seven days a week.
I have known more than one FTSE 100 chief executive to be secretly relieved when the "helpfulness" of their chairman has been diluted by the latter's other corporate commitments.
Hampton also has the record to show he is likely to be more than able to do his Anglo American stint without it adversely affecting RBS.
The bank at its worst became a balance sheet out of control, with a panoply of ever-bigger numbers masking something built on sand.
Hampton, with a string of past heavy-hitter financial directorships to his name – Lloyds TSB, BT, British Gas, British Steel – is unlikely to be the one bamboozled by any future numbers put before the RBS board.
The reasons for his appointment as the bank's chairman are as valid now as they were before the Anglo American issue raised its head.
Two or three days a month at the mining giant are hardly likely to take Hampton's eye off the ball at RBS, where he works three days a week.
Above all, Hampton's track record indicates someone who is unlikely to be anyone's patsy at board level. After its recent turbulent history RBS needs this quality in spades.
The decision to join Anglo was cleared by the RBS board and UK Financial Investments, the UK government quango looking after the taxpayer stakes in banks, so perhaps the only potential criticism is the timing; that and the public relations dimension for a bank still in the eye of the storm.
Practically speaking, Hampton looks up to handling his new schedule. We should not get over-excited.
OFT probe is timelyCORPORATE insolvency work is literally about making money from someone's downfall. However, the Office for Fair Trading (OFT) has now declared its interest in the fees being charged by Britain's major accountancy firms for winding up failed businesses.
It seems that the OFT suspects that it costs more to go bust in Britain than in other countries.
It is never particularly edifying when the accountancy giants mop up considerable fees in this line of work, when often creditors are lucky if they are left with 10p or 20p in the pound.
A timely investigation.
