People with a penchant for paying well do not always last at Barclays’ investment bank. Take Skip McGee, who having secured some very large bonuses for select U.S. executives in late 2013, was gone by mid-2014. Barclays’ investment bankers need to hope that new(ish) CEO Jes Staley doesn’t go the same way.
Barclays lightly trimmed the bonus pool in its investment bank to £946m last year, down from £1bn a year earlier. This was not enough. The Sunday Times reports that key shareholders are preparing to round on Staley at this week’s Barclays Annual General Meeting. They are reportedly “unhappy” that pay at Barclays’ investment bank in particular has not been cut in line with the bank’s declining share price. Barclays’ stock is down 40% over the past 12 months.
Staley’s own £1.2m salary and potentially equivalent bonus is cause of further ire. ThisisMoney reports that proxy voting groups have identified it as “potentially excessive” and given Barclays’ an E grade for its remuneration packages. Staley might always protest that he’s saving Barclays a small fortune by doing the job of two men, and has lost around $2.5m of the money he was obliged to invest in Barclays’ shares last November.
Separately, if you’re looking for a job in a ‘bulge bracket investment bank’ and you want to get paid in cash, you might want to work in M&A or sales. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine points out that under the new U.S. bonus rules, it’s only the most highly paid people and the people taking significant risk who will have their bonuses compulsorily curtailed. Your average customer-facing M&A advisory banker or rates salesman could still be paid entirely in cash with no clawbacks.
Meanwhile:
UBS just hired Josh Miller, a highly regarded Deutsche Bank fixed-income salesman. (Business Insider)
The FICC model is utterly broken as a result of the capital standards. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are at different stages of acceptance. (Business Insider)
Citigroup is now joint second with JPM in commodities trading. (Financial Times)
Carlyle and Bob Diamond might team up to buy Barclays Africa, although they haven’t even approached Barclays yet. (Financial Times)
Credit Suisse would quite like to insure against the risk of CHF3.5bn of ‘operational losses’ losing a catastrophe bond. (Bloomberg)
Trader sacked whilst on maternity leave wins court case against Citi. (Bloomberg)
Cat-torturing 24 year-old ex-Barclays analyst has possibly fled to Northern Ireland. (Financial Times)
Three years ago, Nat Rothschild was worth £1bn. Now he’s worth £70m. (The Times)
If you have a very good memory you may have borderline OCD. (NY Mag)
You’ll sleep better if you always select the same bed in the same hotel when you’re travelling. (Economist)
A PhD will not get you a job. (The Atlantic)
London’s naked restaurant has a 16,000 person waiting list. (Bunyadi)
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Photo credit: Barclays by Insider Monkey is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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