Barclays

FCA Update

FCA Enforcement Actions Cliff Weight and Peter Parry met with Executives from the FCA Primary Markets and Secondary Markets teams on 28 October. We discussed a number of regulatory issues and shared various concerns. The nature of these meetings is that much is confidential and the FCA cannot comment on specific cases if that might be prejudicial to those being investigated, nor can they comment on cases that are not known to be in the public eye. I am pleased to report the ...

Barclays Stockbroking Complaints

Several newspapers and on-line news services have reported this week on the debacle at Barclays. They launched a new “Smart Investor” site to replace their Barclayshare share trading service. The complaints range from failure to advise new account log-in details, support service uncontactable, old features missing (or perhaps simply moved elsewhere and not easily found in some cases), higher charges (fees restructured), to some account types or share holdings being no longer permitted. Barclays have integrated it with their on-line bank account ...

TD Direct Being Sold?

TD Direct, a favourite execution-only stockbroker among private investors, is likely to be sold according to a report by Sky News. There are a number of suggested bidders but one of them is Barclays Bank who run a similar platform under the name Barclays Stockbrokers. With TD Direct having £13 billion of assets under management, a merger of those platforms would still leave the combination somewhat smaller than Hargreaves Lansdown, the market leader. Mergers and restructurings are the name of the game ...

More Bad News for Banks and their Investors

If there are any private investors still invested in major UK listed banks, last week (w/e 30/1/2016) was yet another for disillusionment. In the Financial Times, Lex hit the nail on the head when he said "The one-offs keep on coming. If one did not know better, one might suspect them of being two-, three-, or more-offs". He was referring to Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), but other banks likewise posted bad news during the week. Let's take them in turn: RBS ...

Barclays, Tesco and MoPowered

Barclays, Tesco and MoPowered - two big companies and one a typical new AIM company which has yet to show it can make a profit - but all three are under the weather in the last couple of days. Barclays have today (23/9/2014) been fined £38m by the Financial Conduct Authority for failing to ensure that clients money in the investment bank was kept separate from the banks own assets. When I joked in my local Barclays Bank this morning that I ...

Barclays wins vote on pay

Barclays Bank Annual General Meeting yesterday showed how difficult it is to get excessive pay awards voted down. Despite strong opposition from PIRC, F&C and Standard Life (the latter actually spoke at the meeting which is unusual for institutions), only 24% of votes were cast against the Remuneration Report with an even lower number against the Remuneration Policy. There were a number of shareholders who abstained so the media commonly reported 34% of shareholders  as failing to support the board, but ...

Remuneration at Barclays and Persimmon

Barclays Bank Annual General Meeting is due next week on the 24th April. Pay of bankers is always controversial and Barclays is no exception. Pay has been going up but performance has gone down, and a rights issue is required to strengthen the company's balance sheet. The CEO, Antony Jenkins, has waived his bonus for last year, but that has not placated investors. The bonus pool has been increased and "Role Based Pay" introduced to avoid restrictions imposed by the new ...

Barclays – Who benefits?

Barclays Bank announced their final results yesterday. The results did not match expectations and the shares fell 4% on the day. The national media led with the story that the company had still increased the bonus pool even so, and that the company now pays out more in bonuses than it pays in dividends to shareholders. The CEO, Antony Jenkins,  gave the usual excuse for the high pay levels - that they need to compete on the international scene for top class ...