Fired or retired? Rich Ricci and Barclays bank part ways

Barclays said in a statement today that Rich Ricci – a protégé of the now disgraced former American chief executive Bob Diamond – had decided to “retire” from the bank on June 30, but will step down from the bank’s Executive Committee at the end of this month.

Barclays may say that Mr Ricci decision to go was his alone, yet in February, the outspoken boss of its investment bank said he was “going nowhere” when people began to question why he’d managed to survive a cull of the bank’s former senior management, even as the new boss Antony Jenkins unveiled a new squeaky clean Barclays.

So clearly this has all the hallmarks of a managed exit – to put it politely. And one that was very obvious was on the way, given Mr Jenkins’ inability to stand by Mr Ricci when I publicly asked him about his position earlier this year.

Evasive answers

At the press conference when Mr Jenkins unveiled the new Barclays I asked him why Mr Ricci was staying when he – like Mr Diamond – had been present and in senior management while traders were rigging the Libor interbank lending rate, and the rest.

I put it to him that it was odd he was standing by all his other management and talking so highly of his investment bank, yet seem unable to use the name Rich Ricci. Was he was prepared to openly back him and say if, for example, he expected Mr Ricci to be running the investment bank in a year’s time?

To say Mr Jenkins’ answer was dissembling would put it mildly. He even managed not to use Mr Ricci’s name in answering a question about standing by Mr Ricci.

It was all very bizarre and in my view didn’t do Mr Jenkins any favours either, that’s for sure.

Privately Barclays insiders told me Mr Ricci was earmarked for the chop but it was just a question of finding someone new and good enough to run one of Barclays flagship businesses.

Clearly they’ve given up that hunt, announcing today the promotion of two other Barclays insiders – Eric Bommensath and Tom King – as joint heads of the investment bank instead.

Mr Jenkins may wish he’d made that decision earlier.

Shares cashed

He may also wish he’d somehow been able to claw back some of the hefty £17.6m bonus that Mr Ricci cashed in on March 21 – the day of the budget, when many people in Britain were agonising about the years of pain still to come.

But Mr Jenkins also enriched himself that day, taking £5.3m in share awards, on top of the £2.6m he earned in salary for last year.

Both men had made a big deal of foregoing their 2012 bonus because of the Libor scandal and fine, yet both men found it appropriate to accept and cash in shares for the very years that the Libor rigging was taking place.

Let’s not forget that Mr Jenkins himself was formerly head of Barclay’s retail – the division that quietly racked up £2.6bn in mis-sold payment protection insurance products.

There’s another decision Mr Jenkins may yet regret. Firing Mr Ricci with a year’s salary and allowing him the right to cash in further deferred bonuses in future.

Mr Ricci may be finally leaving Barclays but something tells me, Barclays has yet to rid itself of his legacy.