Raider calls in big guns over Barclays chief’s Epstein link

THE corporate raider stalking Barclays is set to launch a major new offensive against Jes Staley over the bank boss’s ties to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Edward Bramson – the New York financier who owns 5.5 per cent of Barclays – has hired an influential advisory firm to canvass opposition to Staley ahead of next month’s annual meeting.

Lobbying firm Georgeson, hired by Rupert Murdoch in the takeover battle for Sky, has started asking Barclays’ investors whether they will support Staley’s re-election.

Bramson has called on shareholders to withhold their support for Staley as chief executive when they start voting on his re-election to the board on Monday.

He said investors should not compromise their ‘moral standards’ after it emerged that Staley maintained ties with Epstein seven years after the influential financier was convicted of soliciting a child for prostitution. Sources said many of Barclays’ top shareholders have so far failed to express any opinion on how the episode reflects on Staley.

Investors appeared keener to discuss a climate change agenda from pressure group Share Action.

Last week, it emerged that Bramson had stopped short of calling for Staley’s complete removal due to fears it could destabilise the bank in the middle of the coronavirus crisis. But the MoS understands he is to continue his campaign for Staley’s eventual removal.

Staley came to know Epstein well while acting as his private banker at JP Morgan between 2000 and 2013. He visited Epstein during his 13-month jail sentence in 2008 and again in 2015 on a boat trip with his wife to Epstein’s private Caribbean retreat, later dubbed ‘paedo island’. Regulators have now launched a probe into whether Staley and Barclays

have been truthful in their disclosures about the extent of his relationship with Epstein, who killed himself last year in a New York jail. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Staley.

But Bramson said the scandal showed a serious lack of judgment from Staley.

Sherborne Investors said: ‘If Barclays were listed in the US, Staley would not have lasted two minutes when these revelations came to light. The chief executive of a British bank is discovered to have been actively associated with and supported a convicted child sex trafficker and the board’s response is to endorse him unanimously. This needs to come to an end.

‘We are not voting for Staley. On what grounds could any shareholder justify voting for an individual who had a decades-long professional relationship with a notorious convicted paedophile and sex offender?’

Barclays declined to comment.