Barclays boss to meet up with activist Bramson

● Bank believes it can fend off radical restructuring idea

Barclays bosses are poised to tell activist investor Ed Bramson this week at a private meeting that shareholders have no appetite for a major overhaul of the bank.

Chief executive Jes Staley and finance director Tushar Morzaria will sit down with Bramson, whose fund Sherborne became the fourth largest shareholder recently after taking a stake of more than 5 per cent.

Sherborne has now made a total investment of about £2 billion in Barclays including additional derivatives holdings.

The activist investor has yet to make specific demands, although speculation is that he will push for an overhaul or sale of the investment bank in order to deliver better, less volatile financial returns for investors.

However, the bank’s leadership is confident that they have the backing of other shareholders to fend off any radical demands, given that the lender is emerging from a Staleydriven restructuring and starting to deliver better returns.

One Barclays board member said: “I think the shareholder support for the current strategy is there.”

However, he added that Barclays was open to “sensible” proposals.

“People will always make radical suggestions from the outside, that’s how people in financial markets work. Generally as a board we’re focused on the three to five-year picture of where we can go, and frankly we’d all like to get there as fast as we could.

“If there are sensible things to do, then why not?”, the board member said.

It is thought Barclays believes Bramson will stop short of asking for a seat on the board at the meeting. Barclays’ directors met last week where the upcoming meeting with Sherborne was discussed, and it is expected that a full leadership debrief will follow.

Bramson, who has a track record of corporate activism, is understood to have also voted through all of the resolutions at last week’s annual general meeting of shareholders, although he did not attend.

Barclays reported a pre-tax loss of £236 million in the first three months of 2018 – compared with profits of £1.68bn a year earlier.

But that was mainly due to further payment protection insurance (PPI) charges and a £1.4bn settlement with the US department of justice related to the sale of toxic mortgagebacked securities in the leadup to the financial crisis.

Stripped of those litigation and misconduct charges, profits rose 1 per cent to £1.7bn. Institutional investors are understood to have privately urged US private equity giant Apollo Management to tweak up its bid approach for Scottish transport giant, Firstgroup, ahead of tomorrow’s deadline. The details of the offer for Firstgroup, owner of America’s iconic yellow school bus business, were not revealed, but if the deadline passes there would be a six-month moratorium on any offers under City of London Takeover Panel rules.