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What the CEO of Barclays Bank, Bob Diamond, really meant to say in that memo

 

Here’s Bob Diamond’s memo, with a few italicized changes to make it seem more sincere…

It has been an incredibly tough period for all of you given the nature and volume of negative comment that has come against Barclays in the past few days as I cling onto my ‘total remuneration package’ and sacrifice my friends whilst hanging [...]

July 2nd, 2012 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Barclays, Executive Pay, Fiscal Fantasy Island, Troughing | Leave a comment

The resignation of chairman Marcus Agius demonstrates the complete breakdown of corporate governance at Barclays Bank

Marcus Agius should, and could, have sacked Barclays CEO, Bob Diamond, over the LIBOR scandal, which has destroyed Barclays’ reputation with the public, regulators and governments, particularly in the UK and United States.  It has also cost the bank more than a staggering one quarter of a billion pounds (about $450 million) so far, but multi-million [...]

July 2nd, 2012 | Tags: , , , , , , | Category: Barclays, Executive Pay, Financial Crisis, Moral Hazard, Troughing | 3 comments

Congratulations HSBC

HSBC's global HQ is in Canary Wharf

HSBC announced its financial results today. It will probably be attacked by many, so this is a defence.

HSBC is a very different animal to the other UK banks. It is still run by bankers, rather than former McKinsey consultants like Barclays. A good friend, working [...]

February 28th, 2011 | Tags: | Category: Barclays, Financial Crisis | 2 comments

Barclays Capital Pay vs Barclays Dividends: Another chart Bob Diamond won’t be showing shareholders this year

Figures are from Barclays Results Announcements and Annual Reports. This graph doesn’t really require much in the way of commentary, does it? It isn’t hard to see where most of the spare cash Barclays generates is going, and it certainly isn’t to the shareholders who were nearly wiped out in the financial crisis.

Since Legal & General [...]

February 16th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Barclays, Financial Crisis, Fiscal Fantasy Island, Moral Hazard, Troughing | 4 comments

A graph is worth a thousand words: why performance-related pay at Barclays is a bad joke for investors

Here’s a graph showing dividend and share price performance for Barclays shareholders normalised to 2005. Contrast this performance with the pay:income ratio at Barclays Capital, again normalised to 2005. This is not a graph you’ll find in a Barclays annual report or a Bob Diamond presentation.

As an interesting aside, when cantankerous was at business school, half [...]

February 15th, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: Barclays, Financial Crisis, Troughing | 9 comments