IFR was bang on the money back in April, reporting that Barclays would likely not replace outgoing investment banking chief Tom King like-for-like. So it transpires, as Tim Throsby will double as president of Barclays Corporate & International (BC&I) and CEO of the Corporate and Investment Bank.
Throsby has been around the block and has had a varied career, but his core skill-set is equity derivatives. Before taking over from Carlos Hernandez as JP Morgan’s global head of equities in 2012, he ran global equity derivatives at the US bank, and he’s worked in senior positions on the EQD desks of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Macquarie, mainly in Asia. He’s also served time at Citadel and Credit Suisse.
In the press release announcing his hire, Throsby said it’s a tremendous time to be joining Barclays. That remains to be seen, I guess, but what else is he going to say? I was intrigued to see that the derivatives trader felt duty bound to refer not just to his new employer’s leading CIB but also its “world-class payments business”. I imagine that was a bit of a stretch for him, but then again the role is a big step-up for the Australian, given his prior experience.
The re-org now feels almost complete, as is the JP Morgan-isation of Barclays’ upper echelons – six out of 10 ExCom members will be ex-JPM once Throsby joins
The division of time between his various functions will likely see him spend a fair amount of time away from the investment bank, bearing mind BC&I is divided into three discrete units: the Corporate and Investment Bank (global markets, capital markets and IBD); Barclaycard; and non-UK wealth (including offshore and private banking). Each division is further sub-divided into Americas and EMEAPAC regional units.
At the half-year stage, Consumer, Cards & Payments accounted for 40% of the division’s PBT; while BC&I’s reported PBT of £2.75bn was more than 2.5x that of Barclays UK. Throsby is stepping into a big role.
The bank has been busy on the re-org front of late and made a series of management changes in recent weeks, largely driven by the evolving regulatory status quo and the creation earlier this year of BC&I.
Joe McGrath was a winner in the re-org stakes, being tapped to run BC&I Americas, CEO of the dreaded Intermediate Holding Company (the role that had forced Skip McGee to run for the hills) as well as newly-created roles of global head of capital markets and head of capital markets Americas.
John Mahon was doubtless delighted to be moved out of the non-core unit (which he co-headed) to come into the light to head up EMEAPAC IBD. Global DCM was already being run by Mark Lewellen, Travis Barnes & Jill Schwartz. Art Mbanefo took on the EMEAPAC markets job, while John Miller is head of America IBD and head of banking. Joe Corcoran remains global head of markets and head of markets Americas. Richard Taylor is moving upstairs to become chairman of corporate and investment banking.
With the walls starting to cave in on his fiefdom, John Langley figured it was a good a time as any to exit so he quit as global head of finance and risk solutions a couple of weeks back. I’m told it was all amicable but it can’t have been pleasant for Langley seeing recent changes diminish his role step-by-step, a bit like death by a thousand cuts. He’d only been in his role for two years.
The re-org now feels almost complete, as is the JP Morgan-isation of Barclays’ upper echelons – six out of 10 ExCom members will be ex-JPM once Throsby joins. The thing is: Staley simply doesn’t see it as an issue even if the rest of the world finds it bizarre, or even a bit creepy. With so many other ex-JPM bankers operating below the ExCom, though, you have to wonder if it’s starting to create levels of resentment internally.
