Barclays Said to Shift Top Bankers in Wake of Throsby Departure

(Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc is reshaping key parts of its investment bank in the wake of the departure of its top executive, absorbing one of his teams into global markets and moving several senior staff.

Fater Belbachir, who spent more than 10 years at JPMorgan Chase & Co., will start at Barclays in June as head of the global equities desk, according to people familiar with the matter. He replaces Stephen Dainton, who was named interim global head of markets in a management reshuffle last week. A spokesman at the bank declined to comment.

Belbachir’s appointment to run one of the British bank’s best-performing investment banking divisions is part of a broader reshuffle that follows the abrupt departure last week ofTim Throsby, a fellow JPMorgan alum and one of Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley’s top lieutenants.

Hired in 2017, Throsby failed to boost the corporate and investment bank’s performance, which has the lowest return on equity of any unit at the bank. Under his watch, revenues at the unit fell by about 7 percent in two years, according to the bank’s accounts.

Art Mbanefo, one of Throsby’s deputies, followed his boss out the door this week after 10 years spent at Barclays. Only two years ago, he was named head of the financial resource management division at Barclays International, with a wide brief overseeing capital, leverage, risk assets, funding and tax optimization.

This business will move to the global market division currently run by Dainton, the people said. Guy Saidenberg, head of distribution and sale structuring, is also leaving the bank after some of his responsibilities were removed in February, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The New York Post reported the appointment of Belbachir earlier without specifying which role he would take at Barclays.

Staley is reshaping the structure of the investment bank. Throsby previously had four co-head of markets reporting directly into him: Saidenberg, Dainton, Michael Lublinsky, and Adeel Khan. Dainton will now act as the lone interim global head of markets, reporting to Staley.

The changes were unexpected. Last September, Finance Director Tushar Morzaria said at a conference that “one of the most important adds that we had into the company in recent times was the addition of Tim Throsby.”

--With assistance from Donal Griffin.

To contact the reporters on this story: Stefania Spezzati in London at sspezzati@bloomberg.net;Viren Vaghela in London at vvaghela1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Marion Dakers, Keith Campbell

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