Barclays has suspended millions of pounds in bonus share awards to former boss Jes Staley amid an investigation by regulators into his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr Staley left the bank last November after watchdogs began a probe into his links to the dead sex trafficker. Mr Staley is contesting the City regulators’ findings. But Barclays has announced that in the meantime it is freezing long-term bonus and share payments for Mr Staley.
The bank said in a statement: “In line with its normal procedures, the committee exercised its discretion to suspend the vesting of all of Mr Staley’s unvested awards, pending further developments in respect of the regulatory and legal proceedings related to the ongoing Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulatory Authority investigation regarding Mr Staley.”
Regulators are investigating whether Mr Staley’s relationship with Epstein was closer than he described to the board.
According to Barclays latest annual report, Mr Staley holds 9 million unvested shares – stock that has been promised but not yet paid out – which are subject to performance targets, and an additional 2.1 million shares not subject to targets.
Based on Barclays’ latest share price, Mr Staley’s package is worth £21.1m.
He also holds an additional 6.7 million shares that he owns outright. These are worth £12.7m.
Barclays revealed the move as it published its full-year results which showed a sharp rise in pre-tax profits to £8.4bn for 2021 compared to £3.1bn the previous year.
Profits were lifted by the release of £700m that Barclays had set aside to cover anticipated losses on Covid loans. That compares to £4.8bn the bank set aside in 2020 for Covid loan losses.
Source: bbc.com
