Bonus row reignited as Barclays publishes pay
BARCLAYS has revealed that it awarded its top five non-board executives total pay of £28m last year, with the heads of its investment bank Barclays Capital Jerry del Missier and Rich Ricci pocketing over £10m each.
The bank also confirmed it will pay current chief executive Bob Diamond £6.5m in an all-share bonus in addition to his £250,000 salary. The bonus makes Diamond the most well-paid head of any major UK bank, with HSBC’s chief Stuart Gulliver coming in second at £5.2m.
The awards could all be boosted if Barclays’ executives meet performance-related targets, with Missier and Ricci in line for an extra £3.4m each and Diamond to get another £2.3m.
The bank published more details than in the past due to the terms of Project Merlin – the Treasury’s deal with banks – and extra regulatory requirements.
But the additional transparency did not appease critics. Former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakshott, who resigned over the Merlin deal, said that it “shows how the managers of this business extract enormous rewards for failure”.
Labour called for its bonus tax to be reintroduced and union Unite condemned “a culture of greed” at the bank.
But British Bankers’ Association chief Angela Knight defended the pay-outs, telling City A.M.: “You either play the game and pay to keep people or you don’t and they go down the road.”
Barclays’ report revealed the pay of executives managing Barclays’ various divisions ranges from £3.7m to £10.9m, with the vast majority of these pay-outs in bonuses made up of shares.
In addition, it showed that the bank’s 554 “code staff” – managers whose pay is regulated – received an average pay-out of £913,000.