The British bank Barclays would be preparing a plan, known as ‘project Minerva’, to eliminate thousands of clients from its investment banking as part of a major reorganization that will reduce costs by 1,000 million pounds (1,155 million euros), according to Sources familiar with the matter have assured the ‘Financial Times’.
According to this information, Barclays executives have met several times so far this year to discuss the matter, given the pressures on the entity and its CEO, Coimbatore Venkatakrishnan, to depend less on investment banking and distribute more dividends or buy back more shares.
In this sense, a public announcement is expected in February to get rid of the least profitable clients, which would be counted in about 2,500 of them out of a total of more than 10,000, although sources have clarified that no figure has yet been agreed upon. .
However, Barclays has already ruled out raising additional capital to acquire a wealth or asset management unit as options.
Likewise, a sudden reduction of up to 25% of the assets managed by the investment banking unit with a view to redistributing the accounting balance to the consumer and credit card areas would also have been rejected.
This news coincides with the announcement this Tuesday that Barclays would be finalizing a workforce adjustment in the United Kingdom that will mean the departure of up to 900 employees from the entity, as indicated by the Unite union.
This has emerged days after information published last week about the entity’s plans to save up to 1,000 million pounds (1,155 million euros), which could involve eliminating up to 2,000 jobs.
The union has stressed that it is putting pressure on Barclays to avoid all mandatory redundancies and redeploy staff. “Barclays is shamefully cutting jobs to further increase its huge profits,” criticized Unite general secretary Sharon Graham.
