While it continues to own a significant business in France, the process to dispose of Barclays’ operations in Italy and Portugal, which comprise 90 and 85 branches respectively, has emerged just hours after the bank sacked Mr Jenkins, saying it required a different set of leadership skills for the next phase of its restructuring.
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Barclays announced it was conducting a search for Mr Jenkins’ successor after Non-Executive Directors led by Sir Michael Rake, Deputy Chairman and Senior Independent Director, concluded that new leadership was required to accelerate the pace of execution going forward.
Six major global banks, including Barclays and British peer Royal Bank of Scotland, were fined a total of nearly $6 billion, mostly for rigging the foreign exchange market.
Mr McFarlane said it was important to make “the right decision, not a quick one”.
Barclays PLC is in talks with potential bidders for retail banking assets in Italy and Portugal, Sky News reported on Thursday.
They wanted cost cutting to go further and more attention paid to the investment bank which is seen as under-performing.
At Aviva McFarlane played a central role in the removal of Chief Executive Andrew Moss, stepping in to take over the day-to-day running of the business after delivering a damning assessment of Moss’s five years in charge.
He cited the bank’s aspiration to boost returns to shareholders. “We also need to become more externally focused and deal with the internal bureaucracy by becoming leaner and more agile”.
The board said it recognised the contribution Mr Jenkins had made over the past three years, and was “extremely grateful to him for bringing the company to a much stronger position”.
Mr Jenkins had presided over steep cuts to the investment banking operations involving hundreds of job losses, follows a period of lacklustre results and uncertainty about the bank’s structure.
Jenkins was appointed as Chief Executive of Barclays in 2012 following the departure of Bob Diamond, who left in the wake of the Libor scandal.
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Mr Jenkins said that when he had taken over as group chief executive in 2012 it was a “particularly hard time for Barclays”.
