U.K.-based banking giant Barclays plc (BCS,BARC.L) is expected to name Robert Diamond, the company's president and head of its investment banking unit, as the company's next chief executive on Tuesday, according to media reports. He will succeed current CEO John Varley at Barclays' annual meeting next March.
The news comes as a surprise as Varley, who has been at the top job at Barclays since September 2004, had given no previous indications that he planned to step down. Media reports said that Varley has now indicated to the Barclay's board that he is ready to step down as he plans to focus on charitable work and his range of non-executive directorships.
Varley is a non-executive director of pharmaceuticals company AstraZeneca Plc (AZN). He is also the Chairman of Business Action on Homelessness, President of the Employers' Forum on Disability, President of the UK Drug Policy Commission and a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Varley is credited with having steered U.K's third-biggest banking group through the financial crisis without availing the U.K. government's bailout money and also overseeing the bank's return to profitability. When Varley took over as Barclay's CEO, Diamond was named the bank's president.
U.S.-born Diamond, currently based in New York, will relocate to London to take up his new role. His succession to the chief executive role is widely expected after he was credited with masterminding the bold, but controversial acquisition of the defunct Lehman Brothers' U.S. assets at the end of 2008.
According to media reports, Jerry del Missier and Rich Ricci, co-chief executives for corporate and investment banking at the bank, are to replace Diamond at the top of Barclays Capital.
The 59 year-old Diamond currently runs the highly-profitable Barclays Capital, which he has been credited with for building from scratch into a multibillion-pound unit. Almost 90% of Barclays' GBP 3.95 billion pre-tax profit for the first half of the year was generated by Barclays Capital.
However, Diamond has faced criticism after he and Varley had refused to accept the U.K. government's bailout money at the height of the financial crisis despite the company's balance sheet being hit badly by toxic loans at that time.
Diamond's enormous pay package too has come under severe criticism. In March, just weeks after apparently waiving his bonus for 2009, it emerged that Diamond had only waived his cash entitlement and was awarded a long-term incentive worth up to GBP 6 million by 2012.
In 2009, he received GBP 26 million for his shares in Barclays Global Investors, the bank's fund management business, when it was sold to U.S.-based BlackRock Inc. (BLK). In April 2010, the UK's then-Business Secretary, Lord Peter Mandelson, had called Diamond the "unacceptable face" of banking for his estimated pay package of more than GBP 60 million.
Diamond's lack of experience in retail banking also makes him a potentially contentious head of Barclays.
Diamond began his career as a lecturer at the School of Business, University of Connecticut from 1976-1977. In the late 1970s, Diamond switched from academia to investment banking and worked for Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, before joining Barclays in 1996. Diamond is also a board member of BlackRock following the integration of Barclays Global Investors. A keen sports enthusiast, he is a die-hard fan of Chelsea and the Boston Red Sox baseball team.
BCS closed Friday's regular trading on the NYSE at $20.28, up $0.97 or 5.02% on a volume of 2.53 million shares. The stock has been trading in a range of $15.36-$25.68 in the past 52 weeks.
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