Some of Barclays’ leading shareholders have raised concerns about the terms of former chief executive Jes Staley’s abrupt departure from the bank, according to a report.
Several investors have complained to the Investor Forum about Barclays’ decision to let Staley keep £2.4m of fixed pay and a £120,000 pension payment for this year, the Financial Times reported. Investors are also unhappy about Barclays paying Staley’s moving costs to return to the US, the paper said.
Staley quit on 1 November after UK regulators said they were unhappy about how he described his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender. Three top-20 Barclays investors told the FT they were uneasy about the Barclays board’s handling of the matter.
“We will be asking questions about what they knew, when they knew it and we will be questioning their judgment,” an investor told the FT. “It’s another reputation knock. The new chair has got a hell of a job trying to repair all the PR with the regulators.”
The Investor Forum was set up in 2014 to represent investor views to boards of UK companies. Its members include leading institutional investors such as BlackRock and Legal & General.
Staley told regulators and Barclays’ board that his relationship with Epstein was purely professional. He intends to contest the preliminary conclusions of UK regulators in a process that could take many years.
Another Barclays investor told the FT a large number of emails between Staley and Epstein when Staley worked for JP Morgan suggested he “massively undersold the relationship with Epstein”. Staley’s lawyer has said all the emails between Staley and Epstein were innocuous.
