I can handle dolly birds
What Barclays’ Scots boss said about finance whizz Amanda
‘I’m going to call the tart’
BARCLAYS top dealmaker called finance high-flyer Amanda Staveley a ‘dolly bird’ and a ‘tart’ as he fought to win a bailout deal.
Miss Staveley, 47, who once dated Prince Andrew, has accused Roger Jenkins, 64, of sexism and misogyny in a bitter dispute over the multi-billionpound agreement in 2008.
Scot Mr Jenkins, who was then Britain’s best-paid banker after earning £65million over two years, also joked about giving cocaine to a colleague.
The revelations emerged yesterday in documents made public due to a Daily Mail application.
Slurs by Jenkins, who once dated model Elle Macpherson and was nicknamed ‘Big Dog’, were just two of the ‘deeply unpleasant personal comments’ Miss Staveley claims Barclays executives made about her. Another boss is said to have called her a ‘foxy blonde’.
Miss Staveley’s firm PCP Capital Partners is suing Barclays for up to £1.6billion, claiming it edged her out of the deal. The bank has painted her as an international finance rookie and says PCP’s case is ‘misconceived and without merit’. Mr Jenkins, in a phone call from 9pm on October 14, 2008, referred to Miss Staveley with the words: ‘I can handle dolly birds.’
Fellow executive Richard Boath asked him if he had checked if she was happy acting as an adviser, rather than a ‘principal’ investor, which would give her bigger fees.
Mr Jenkins replied: ‘Well, yes, because she gets paid the other side.’ Later in the call he said: ‘I’m going to call the tart. I was going to call the tart’. Boath replied: ‘Who’s the tart?’ leading Mr Jenkins to say, ‘Amanda’. Later in the same call Mr Jenkins told Mr Boath to give a task to another member of staff. He said: ‘OK... we’ll just need to give him a little bit of cocaine so he speaks a little bit quicker.’ He added that he was joking. The case brought by Miss Staveley’s company has shone a light on the luxurious lifestyles of the top financiers at the heart of the banking crisis. Joe Smouha QC, for PCP Capital, told the court: ‘The case reveals the prefinancial crisis arrogance, ethical carelessness, focus on bonuses, on money and on jobs... and, unfortunately, sexism and misogyny.’
Mr Jenkins, who was raised in Edinburgh and studied at HeriotWatt University, has been acquitted in the criminal courts of wrongdoing related to the 2008 fundraising, but Miss Staveley’s team has claimed he must have been ‘dishonest’ or ‘reckless’ to let the deal go ahead as it did.
In documents filed to the court, PCP accuses him and another exBarclays executive, Stephen Jones, of making ‘deeply unpleasant personal comments’ about Miss Staveley. Mr Jones resigned from his role as UK banking’s top lobbyist last week and apologised to Miss Staveley ahead of his evidence, due next week.
In autumn 2008 Barclays was desperate to maintain its independence and the right to pay massive bonuses and dividends, the court heard.
It began to woo investors from Qatar and Abu Dhabi to raise £7.3billion to see it through the crisis. PCP was arranging with the group from Abu Dhabi to buy Barclays shares worth £3.5billion.
Miss Staveley says Barclays told her six times that PCP and the Abu Dhabi investors would be offered the same deal as other major investors. Instead the bank misled markets and funnelled an extra £346million in secret fees to the Qataris, according to court documents. Barclays says the fees were legitimate.
When the deal was signed, PCP was paid £30million. It claims that if were not for the alleged deceit it could have collected between £400million and £1.6billion.