Barclays’ key moves in Ricci reshuffle

 

Rich Ricci, the chief executive of Barclays’ corporate and investment bank, has carried out his first change to the management of the unit since taking over in June, with the creation of a single markets business.

The unit will combine investment bank trading and distribution teams across fixed income, commodities and currencies and equities. Eric Bommensath, formerly head of FICC, will lead the venture. The move comes after the UK bank announced the appointment of former retail banking head Antony Jenkins as the new chief executive of the bank. He stepped into the shoes vacated by Bob Diamond, who resigned in July after the Libor-rigging scandal broke.

According to an internal memo, Ricci said the new unit will “enhance the synergies across products and regions, as well as across trading and distribution, and strengthen further our focus on clients”.

Ricci added: “These organisational changes will position the firm best to take advantage of the changing market landscape, to continue delivering outstanding value to our clients, and to become the ‘go-to’ bank for all our stakeholders.”

 

He said: “I believe the future is in our hands. We have taken market share through the turbulence of recent times, but with markets remaining challenging we must continue to control our own destiny.”

He added that Barclays will share more detail on the new markets structure, and the bank's front office and Infrastructure teams "very soon."

 

The announcement comes after successful first nine month of the year for Barclays’ investment bank. The bank entered the top-five M&A revenue rankings for the first time, according to data from Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting, launching itself from ninth at the end of 2011 to fourth for the year-to-date in the deal value league table, winning $249bn worth of deals.

Barclays declined to comment.

 

Here are some of the key personnel in the new unit:

• Eric Bommensath, formerly head of FICC, is to become head of markets.

• Jerry Donini, a former Lehman’s Brothers banker and previously head of equities, will become chief operating officer for the corporate and investment banking unit

• Skip McGee, the other major ex-Lehman banker at Barclays, has become chief executive of corporate and investment banking in the US, in addition to his role as head of the investment banking division. McGee was previously global head of the investment banking division at Lehman. McGee will also become chairman of the investment banking division in the first quarter of next year

• Tom King, formerly head of investment banking, Emea and co-head of corporate finance and M&A, has become deputy head of the investment banking division, and will become sole head next year on McGee’s move to chairman

• Patrick Clackson, who was appointed chief operating officer of corporate and investment banking in October 2011, has become chief executive of corporate and investment banking, Emea

• John Winter, chief executive officer of corporate banking, has been promoted to the investment bank’s executive committee

The reshuffle has also led to the three departures – who will all step down at the end of the year. They are:

• Ivan Ritossa, most recently head of investment banking in Latin America, central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has occupied a variety of roles since joining from Lehman Brothers in 2002. However, he is best known for building the foreign exchange business. In February 2007. Ritossa relocated from London to Singapore to take on the position of head of rates for Asia Pacific alongside his role as global head of foreign exchange, according to an old Barclays memo.

In June 2010, an Australian property website said that Ritossa and his wife Marina held the record for buying the most expensive property in Sydney when they bought Coolong, a beachfront home in the area of Vaucluse for $45m in 2008

• Iain Abrahams

A tax legal expert, Abrahams is best known for working alongside fellow Scot and Barclays veteran, Richard Jenkins, in the bank’s controversial Structured Capital Markets Unit. Abrahams worked at Ernst & Young for seven years where he was made partner in international law and transaction advisory. He later worked as a partner at law firm Slaughter & May for three years before moving to Barclays. Abrahams became an executive vice chairman of Barclays last year.

• Guglielmo Sartori di Borgoricco

Di Borgoricco, who was head of global distribution, headed a 150-strong team out of London, having joined Barclays from Credit Suisse where he was co-head of European distribution and previously European head of derivatives marketing. Ricci said in his memo that Guglielmo has built a global distribution business across asset classes, and praised his “client understanding, focus and quality of execution.”

 

In May 2008, the Daily Telegraph reported that di Borgoricco bought one of London’s most expensive houses. He reportedly bought a Grade II-listed Hampstead mansion with a swimming pool, tennis courts and a waterfall, as well as a price tag of at least £20m.