Barclays warns ex-employees to stop investment bank exodus

Barclays is fighting to prevent an exodus from its investment bank after about 30 of its bankers left in the US to join rivals this year, which would harm the British lender’s ambitions to compete with big Wall Street firms. Is.

Barclays’ human resources department has been warning bankers leaving the company not to try to prey on their colleagues, according to people familiar with the matter.

So far, Barclays has struggled to stem a steady flow of departures, with more than half a dozen managing directors leaving in recent weeks, including Michael Guingue and Sam Jackson, who are moving to Jefferies, and Derek Keller, who is joining UBS. people said.

They add several other exits this year. Global investment banking chair John Miller is one of more than a dozen Barclays bankers who have joined Jefferies, while top dealmaker Marco Valla went to UBS to become the Swiss lender’s global co-head of investment banking. Valla was previously global head of technology, media and telecommunications and consumer investment banking at Barclays.

A banker who recently left Barclays said, “I’ve never seen such a big exodus.”

Inside Barclays, bankers blamed the recent turmoil on the decision at the start of the year to replace Miller and Jean-Francois Astier as co-heads of the investment bank.

Barclays recently appointed Taylor Wright, co-head of global capital markets, and Cathal Dacey, from Credit Suisse, to run the business. Miller returned to a chair role before leaving for Jefferies, while Astier was named global head of the financial sponsorship business.

Senior insiders say the appointments were a strategic decision to usher in a new generation in the leadership team, with a different focus than the bank’s past.

Historically, Barclays’ investment bank, which was built around the 2008 acquisition of Lehman Brothers’ North American business in the US, has been heavily weighted towards debt capital markets.

The bank is looking to expand further into equity and advisory work, particularly given the rise in interest rates, the growing strength of boutique investment banks and private credit funds, and opportunities in emerging sectors such as technology and renewable energy.

A senior Barclays executive said, “When you make this transition, it’s not just about hiring experts, it’s also about leadership in what this world is going to look like.”

And while Miller and Astier were both based in New York, Barclays has gone back to one of its two co-chairs – Deci – being based in Europe.

“Just having a co-head of banking who operates in that environment is more naturally connected to that client base,” the senior Barclays executive said.

But in the initial months, the changes sparked an uproar among bankers who did not get senior jobs or were loyal to the previous leadership.

In response, Barclays has hired about 20 bankers at the director and managing director levels in its investment bank so far this year, including software banker Douglas Melsheimer from Goldman Sachs and equity markets banker Foruhar Majlesi from Instone Real Estate Group.

Jefferies and UBS declined to comment.

In a statement, Barclays said it has a growth strategy to enter the top five largest investment banks and that “attracting and retaining top talent with the right leadership is a key component to take our business into the future.” have to keep”.

“In Investment Banking we announced a new leadership team in the first quarter and we expect and plan for a natural decline when transitions occur. We are confident in our strategy, we will continue to invest in talent and we look forward to helping clients today We are committed to helping you navigate the U.S. economic environment.”

In 2022, Barclays was ranked as the sixth-highest-grossing investment bank globally, according to data compiled by Refinitiv, surpassing a sorely-wounded Credit Suisse, all but five of the largest US investments. Banks left behind.

Reassuring investors about the merits of Barclays’ investment banking business is central to Chief Executive CS Venkatakrishnan’s efforts to boost the bank’s share price.

The departures are notable at a time when hiring on Wall Street has slowed amid a lack of dealmaking that has led some banks including Goldman and Morgan Stanley to cut jobs.

For a senior investment banker at a competitor, the exodus was a reminder “of how fragile investment banks are”.