New boss at Barclays starts to wield axe

NEW Barclays boss Jes Staley has wasted no time wielding the axe – and is to cut 1,200 investment banking jobs.

The British high street giant will lay off 100 bankers from the London office as part of this wave of redundancies.

Barclays has been reducing the dominance of its casino banking arm and will shut nine offices, pulling out of Russia, Australia, Taiwan and Thailand.

The bank spent the past two years shrinking its army of investment bankers by 7,000.

That was widely thought to have been the end of the reduction at the division but Staley said yesterday that there are several new initiatives within its investment bank which ‘build on its existing strategy’.

He said the investment bank would continue to focus on its two home markets in the UK and US.

He said: ‘In Asia, we will continue to provide expertise and resources to clients who have cross-border requirements from offices in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and India.’

Barclays will report its full-year results for the 12 months to December 31, 2015 on March 1.

It expects to report income from the investment bank as being broadly flat on the previous year.

Staley said: ‘With these actions, we are accelerating the investment bank strategy . . . focusing on its core strengths and running the business for returns.’

The latest cull comes in addition to the 19,000 cuts that have been announced as part of a three-year cost reduction plan.

Ten of Europe’s biggest lenders have announced 130,000 job losses since June, with bank chief executives pulling back from businesses where they are not major players to focus on more profitable markets.

Staley was poached from an American hedge fund and filled the post left vacant since Antony Jenkins was sacked in July.