Barclays chooses Antony Jenkins as chief executive

LONDON - Agence France-Presse

Britain’s Barclays has named retail boss Antony Jenkins as its new CEO. REUTERS photo

British bank Barclays yesterday named retail and business banking head Antony Jenkins as its new chief executive, replacing Bob Diamond who resigned last month over the interbank rate-rigging scandal.

“Barclays announce that Antony Jenkins has been appointed as a director and as group chief executive of Barclays with immediate effect,” the group said in a statement.

The Briton’s appointment comes the day after Barclays revealed that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has launched a probe into the 2008 investment deal between the bank and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.

Jenkins declared that his top priority would be to repair the bank’s damaged reputation in the wake of the Libor affair.

“We have made serious mistakes in recent years and clearly failed to keep pace with our stakeholders’ expectations,” he said in the statement.

“We have an obligation to all of those stakeholders -- customers, clients, shareholders, colleagues and broader society -- and a unique opportunity to restore Barclays’ reputation by making it the ‘go to’ bank in all of our chosen markets.

“That journey will take time, we have much to do, and I look forward to getting started immediately.”
Jenkins, was head of Barclays’ Retail and Business Banking (RBB) business. He has been a member of the group executive committee of Barclays since 2009.

U.S. national Diamond resigned in July over the rate-rigging scandal that engulfed the bank and sullied London’s image as a financial centre. The scandal erupted in June when British and US regulators fined Barclays 290 million ($453 million, 369 million euros) after the bank admitted attempting to manipulate the Libor and Euribor rates between 2005 and 2009.

However, the fallout risks becoming much wider, with analysts claiming that the lender could face massive lawsuits since mortgage rates passed onto customers were influenced by Libor rates.

Barclays had already announced that industry veteran David Walker would become its new chairman from November, succeeding Marcus Agius who also quit over the Libor affair.