Rudderless ship turns to Agius in hunt for CEO
AS BARCLAYS’ top management continued to fall like dominoes yesterday, the bank was forced to turn to outgoing chairman Marcus Agius to lead its hunt for a successor to Bob Diamond.
Agius, the first scalp to be claimed as a result of the Libor scandal, announced his intention to leave the bank on Monday morning.
But just 24 hours later he was back in the spotlight as “full-time chairman”, leading the Barclays executive committee and heading up the search for a new chief executive – to “commence immediately”.
The appointment gives Agius de-facto control of the bank after the departure of both Diamond and operations head Jerry Del Missier yesterday.
With a tough task ahead of him to steer the bank through the remaining days of the scandal, it will be small comfort to Agius that his appearance in front of the Treasury select committee – originally schedule for tomorrow – has been delayed until next week.
Meanwhile the day-old search for a replacement for Agius himself goes on. The recruitment process is being run concurrently by non-executive board member Sir John Sunderland.