Britain's L&G hires Wheway as new chair, Kingman to step down

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's Legal & General said on Monday it had hired finance and retail veteran Scott Wheway to become its new chairman from next May, succeeding John Kingman as the FTSE 100 insurer undergoes wider board changes.

Wheway will join L&G's board from January as a non-executive director and chair designate before taking over from Kingman - who has served nine years as chair - after the company's annual general meeting, the firm said.

L&G is also looking for a new finance chief after Jeff Davies said he would step down at the end of this year to join insurance group Resolution Life. 

L&G is undergoing a strategy shake-up under CEO Antonio Simoes that has seen it offload non-core businesses such as its U.S. protection business and housebuilder CALA Group in order to focus on its core insurance and asset management units in a bid to return more cash to shareholders.

Wheway is currently chair of Lloyds Banking Group's pensions arm Scottish Widows and has previously chaired British Gas owner Centrica and held board roles at AXA UK, Aviva and Santander UK. He is a former CEO of Best Buy Europe and held senior roles at Boots and Tesco.

(Reporting by Yamini Kalia in Bengaluru and Iain Withers in London; Editing by Rashmi Aich)