Barclays’ New Boss Antony Jenkins Has A Big Job To Do

Britain’s Barclays Bank named retail boss Antony Jenkins as its new CEO on Thursday, handing an insider the massive task of repairing the damage caused by a rate-rigging scandal.

Jenkins was originally brought in six years ago to turn Barclays’ credit card business around, reports Yahoo! News. He will replace Bob Diamond, the CEO who built up the company’s thriving investment bank, but resigned in July after the bank admitted to manipulating the Libor benchmark interest rate.

Jenkins has been long seen as a front runner for the gig as Barclays new boss, despite his lack of experience in investment banking, which is a big profit driver for the bank. The firm has also brought in David Walker, an industry veteran, as its new chairman, succeeding Marcus Agius, who left in November in the wake of the scandal.

Antony Jenkins, an Oxford University graduate, who began his career with Barclays before he moved to Citi in 1989, stated:

“We have made serious mistakes in recent years and clearly failed to keep pace with our stakeholders’ expectations.”

The announcement of Antony Jenkins as the bank’s new CEO came hours after the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced the launch of a new criminal investigation into the bank’s activities, according to CNN.

While it is not ideal timing for Jenkins to take over, it is also not the worst timing, as his appointment could have been announced before the scandal broke, or even three months before, before the Libor scandal broke. Despite the bad timing, analysts and market watchers have been mostly positive about Jenkins’ new job as Barclay’s boss.

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