Barclays ditches Credit Suisse in broker shake-up
HIGH STREET bank Barclays has ended its 25-year broking relationship with Credit Suisse after appointing JP Morgan Cazenove to the role.
The UK lender, which also has Deutsche Bank retained as a co-broker, selected the bank after putting its corporate broking mandate up for tender. Deutsche Bank has been co-broker since 2011.
Broking mandates earn no fees for banks but can lead to potentially lucrative contracts for mergers and acquisition and fundraising work.
City A.M. first revealed Barclays was reviewing its broking relationship last month, as part of the bank’s general-housekeeping. JP Morgan’s appointment was first reported by Sky News yesterday.
The switch comes just two months after tough-talking former executive John McFarlane, the ex-chairman of Aviva, took over the chairmanship of Barclays.
He had promised to conduct a review of the business, which is led by Antony Jenkins.
McFarlane has also previously worked with JP Morgan Cazenove at Aviva, where it was retained as house broker.
The appointment of JP Morgan takes its haul of FTSE 100 corporate broking mandates to 34 clients, the most on the index, according to Adviser Rankings. It has 90 clients in the FTSE 250.
The next biggest broker, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has 27 clients in the FTSE 100 and 27 in the FTSE250.
Morgan Stanley is the next largest broker on the FTSE 100 followed by UBS. Barclays itself is the fifth biggest broker on the FTSE 100.