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John Kingman doesn't like the limelight. The chief executive of UK Financial Investments was once a Financial Times journalist and press secretary to Gordon Brown as Chancellor, but he almost never gives interviews.
Yet the top Treasury mandarin seconded to run UKFI, the body that owns and looks after the taxpayer's controlling stakes in all the bailed-out banks, is under scrutiny like never before.
Kingman, only 40, oversees a bewildering array of failed banking assets - Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds HBOS, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. UKFI was created in November 2008 to administer these investments.
He has a fearsome intellect (scholarship to Westminster School; First from Oxford; Yale fellow) and many admirers, including in the City, who say he is an effective and tough operator.
"He is very thorough, very careful, very public-minded," says William Sargent, a Treasury non-executive director and chief executive of leading visual-effects company Framestore. "He is a remarkably clear thinker. You'd feel you had prepped well for a meeting and he would skewer you with three questions." Or as ex-RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin described talks with Kingman over the Government bailout: "This isn't a negotiation, it's a drive-by shooting."
Friends say the boss of UKFI is relishing his new challenge but it is daunting. Kingman has limited experience of banking or financial markets, and still has no permanent chairman as the Government struggles to replace stop-gap Glen Moreno. He has only a dozen staff. "I am worried there isn't the skill base in the UKFI and the Treasury to properly manage the Government's stakes," says one City banking analyst.
UKFI says it operates at arm's length just like any other shareholder - except, of course, it isn't. Theoretically Kingman must do the Treasury's bidding, and critics claim he is just a Government puppet, a "glorified caretaker".
Yet that misses the subtlety of Kingman's dilemma. He finds himself in a curiously semi-independent role, which means he is in danger of conflict with his old friends in Whitehall.
As a UKFI strategy document published on Monday said, his quango's role is twofold: to manage the £70 billion worth of shareholdings in RBS and Lloyds to create value for the taxpayer (to generate a return on shares which are currently £10.9 billion in the red) and, second, to execute a strategy for Government to "dispose" of the assets.
For Kingman the first issue could make it a very long game (2014 or later). The problem is his political masters may want to sell sooner to show they are overcoming the crisis - a sale of Northern Rock before the election has been mooted. Kingman insists: "This will not and cannot be a short-term game."
No wonder there have been hints of tension. It is said UKFI had to push hard for Brown's chum Sir Victor Blank (who agreed the HBOS merger) to be ousted from Lloyds, while the Treasury was up in arms over the £9 million-plus pay deal for new RBS chief Stephen Hester. And then there's uncertainty over Lloyds chief Eric Daniels, about whom UKFI is said to have misgivings.
In the long run, UKFI could face intense pressure if Number 10 decided it urgently needed to sell a stake simply to raise funds. There is also the possibility that more bank losses could emerge, forcing the Government to increase its stake, with no guarantee of profit.
Kingman will need to be tough. "As a taxpayer, I am awfully pleased he's the man who's there to recover our money," says Sargent of Framestore.
The UKFI boss knows he cannot wield power without being accountable.
His appearance before the Commons Treasury Select Committee (admittedly not the sharpest tools in the box) in March had mixed results. He was assailed for failing to provide MPs with information for which they had asked in advance. The UKFI boss stonewalled in true Sir Humphrey style.
John McFall, the Glaswegian committee chairman, gave him a sharp reminder of what's at stake: "You are standing behind hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money and, in the interest of the taxpayer, you got a simple request on Friday and you do not even seem apologetic that you do not have it." Kingman was left squirming. Those close to UKFI said it was an administrative slip, rather than a former Treasury spinner being less than forthcoming.
He is still reluctant in the public glare. On Monday when he unveiled his 82-page strategy document (revealing he earns a £143,000 civil servant's salary), much of the event was off the record.
But, as is clear, the son of mathematician Sir John Kingman and historian Valerie Cromwell is not someone who likes to give away much. In his Who's Who entry, he makes no mention of his private life or hobbies.
He has a flat near Trafalgar Square and is said to have a long-term girlfriend. He is also a foodie and regular at the Chelsea Flower Show, where he likes to dine with friends after the Monday gala.
Given Kingman's stellar education, the Civil Service was always an obvious step. He joined the Treasury in 1991 when Norman Lamont was Chancellor and another thruster was David Cameron.
But Kingman didn't like a later spell at the heritage department and switched to the private sector in 1995, with a two-year spell at the FT and then as an aide to Lord Browne, then chief executive of BP. "I've seen a little bit of the outside world," Kingman likes to say.
Some recall he was too clever by half. He is said to have penned one Lex opinion column for the FT that put forward the bizarre notion the Royal Opera House and English National Opera should be merged. The paper's duty editor was furious and pulled it minutes before deadline.
Kingman found his calling back at the Treasury. After a spell as press secretary, he shot up the ranks, running a series of divisions: Productivity and Structural Reform; Enterprise and Growth; and Finance and Industry. "I don't think I've had an especially meteoric rise," he says. "The Treasury is a department that typically promotes early."
By the age of 37 he was number two, Second Permanent Secretary, and, as his UKFI biography says, "responsible for oversight and control of some £600 billion of public spending annually". For those who feel spending got out of control, that is not something to boast about. Some also believe that, given what we now know about the Brown circle's poisonous briefings, the ex-press secretary should have clamped down harder on bad behaviour.
He is tipped as a future Cabinet Secretary although he could probably have his pick of jobs in the City after UKFI.
Of course, the big issue hanging over Kingman is that he implemented so many of the Treasury's fateful decisions over the past decade, including regulation and corporate governance. He also led all the failed negotiations in 2007-8 over the possible sale of Northern Rock, which led to full nationalisation.
As the consummate Whitehall servant, Kingman was just carrying out his masters' wishes. Now at UKFI he has his own chance to make some amends.
