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Barclays CEO axed to speed up change

Wednesday, July 08, 2015 - 01:50

Barclays has ousted Chief Executive Antony Jenkins after three years in the post. As Ivor Bennett reports, the British lender has decided new blood will help accelerate strategic change at the bank and boost shareholder returns.

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It's the sort of behaviour you might expect from a bank once known as the "bad boy of banking". But Antony Jenkins was supposed to have ended that culture at Barclays. And his ousting from the top job three years after he was brought in to clean up the British lender came as a shock, says IG's Chris Beauchamp. (SOUNDBITE) (English) CHRIS BEAUCHAMP, MARKET ANALYST, IG, SAYING: "He had a long mandate to stay to reform the bank, to slim down investment banking, to put a more human face on Barclays if you like, but this departure certainly marks a radical change, it seems that the board have finally decided that he wasn't making the necessary changes, particularly in cost cutting, where he promised to make those efforts." The move came just weeks after John McFarlane became chairman. He'd promised to be "hands-on" and will now take over executive duties until a permanent successor is appointed. Shares in the bank jumped more than three percent on the news. Investors pleased at the prospect of a speedier turnaround plan. Barclays' results have been decidedly average recently. The bank's structure a concern. (SOUNDBITE) (English) CHRIS BEAUCHAMP, MARKET ANALYST, IG, SAYING: "I think his failure lay in really cutting down on that sort of investment bank culture that had been so heavily fostered by Bob Diamond in his years at Barclays. It takes many years to instill that and then many years to route that one out. And Antony Jenkins never went quite as far as he would actually have liked to have done in actually getting rid of that." Jenkins said he was proud of the "significant progress" he had made at Barclays. But for the bank that was at the centre of the Libor scandal three years ago it was coming from a low base And Jenkins won't leave empty-handed either - he'll receive a year's salary of 1.1 million pounds, plus almost as much again in shares. Then there's the pension allowance of £360,000 and he'll remain eligible for a pro-rata performance bonus for the current year.