Barclays to axe 3,700 jobs as new boss lays out revival

LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays is axing at least 3,700 jobs and pruning its investment bank as its new boss put his stamp on the troubled bank by aiming to cut 1.7 billion pounds in annual costs and raise standards after a series of scandals.

The plans form part of an overhaul which Chief Executive Antony Jenkins hopes will convince a sceptical public that he can change a bank which has been dogged by controversy, including a $450 million (289 million pounds) fine for rigging Libor interbank lending rates.

"I understand the cynics and the sceptics out there, but cynics and sceptics never built anything. It will take years before people actually change their impression of us. I'm not daunted by that at all," Jenkins told BBC radio.

Jenkins is taking a harder line on pay and Barclays said it had cut the average bonus for its investment bankers to 54,100 pounds for last year, down 17 percent on the year. It will pay 1.85 billion pounds in bonuses, down 14 percent on the year.

Barclays said the job cuts will include 1,800 in corporate and investment banking and 1,900 in its European retail and business banking. Finance Director Chris Lucas said 1,600 of the investment bank cuts had already been made.

Jenkins plans to focus investment in Britain, the United States and Africa, and reduce the bank's presence in continental Europe and Asia.

That will include a scaling back of the investment bank's equities and advisory businesses in continental Europe and Asia. It will refocus its retail businesses in Italy, Spain, Portugal and France on mass affluent customers.

Jenkins, 51, has said he expects his plan, dubbed "Project Transform", to take five to 10 years to rebuild Barclays, and has told staff they should leave if they do not want to sign up to the new standards.

Barclays shares were up 4 percent by 09.30 a.m. British Time, the best performer in a flat European banking index.

DIVIDEND LIFT

Jenkins aims to cut the bank's cost base to 16.8 billion pounds in 2015, excluding one-off costs to achieve that of 2.7 billion over the next three years, and lift its dividend to achieve a 30 percent payout ratio.

The bank will pay a dividend of 6.5 pence per share for 2012 from 6p in 2011, which analysts said was encouraging given that UK regulators are telling banks to conserve capital.

"We take this as a positive for the UK banks - the fact that a bank was allowed to increase its dividend in a backdrop where the Bank of England has been talking about capital holes in the UK banks," said Chira Barua, senior analyst at Sanford Bernstein.

Jenkins, a retail banker who was picked at the end of August to run the bank after his predecessor Bob Diamond was forced to quit, will unveil more details on his plan to media and investors later on Tuesday at London's Edwardian Royal Horticultural Halls.

He will reduce the balance sheet by cutting legacy assets. Barclays held 387 billion pounds in risk-weighted assets at the end of December, but that would be equivalent to 464 billion under stricter capital rules coming into force, and Jenkins said he aims to reduce that to 440 billion by the end of 2015.

CHANGING STANDARDS

Much of his focus has been on changing standards and culture that have been criticised as too lax after the bank's Libor fine, the mis-selling of products to millions of customers and investigations into whether Barclays provided enough disclosure in fundraisings from Middle East investors.

The Financial Services Authority and Serious Fraud Office are investigating certain commercial arrangements between Barclays and Qatari investors related to two 2008 fundraisings.

The bank confirmed it will close its controversial but profitable tax advisory business.

Jenkins' plan to keep but scale back the investment bank was expected, as it contributes more than half of group earnings.

Unveiling the strategic plan alongside annual results, the bank reported a 2012 pretax profit of 246 million pounds, down from 5.9 billion in 2011 due to the cost of compensating customers and losses on the value of its own debt.

However, the bank said its adjusted pretax profit for 2012 was 7.05 billion pounds, up 26 percent on the year and in line with the average forecast by analysts.

Pretax profit at the investment bank rose by 37 percent to 4.1 billion pounds, stronger than expected. Income in the investment bank was down 2 percent from the previous quarter, but up 13 percent on a year ago, with fixed income, equities and advisory arms all up.

The bank said it had a good January. "We've had a good start to the year, pretty much across the board and all businesses so we move into the rest of 2013 with confidence," Lucas told reporters on a conference call.

(Editing by Greg Mahlich, David Holmes and Giles Elgood)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/barclays-ceo-set-cut-jobs-costs-overhaul-plan-000313661--sector.html

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