Bob Diamond spent 15 years making his name as the City's highest profile banker by building up the investment banking arm of Barclays, known in financial circles as BarCap (Barclays Capital).
But after just over a year as chief executive of the overall bank, Diamond is killing off the very brand name he became so closely associated with.
The explanation is that the bank can better serve its clients as a single brand – so it is also goodbye to Barclays Wealth (the private bank) and Barclays Corporate (business banking). It is not the first time the bank has killed off the brand name of its investment bank – BarCap replaced BZW, which Diamond helped to dismantle. The rebirth of the investment bank has undoubtedly been successful, both in generating profits for the bank and big cheques for its staff.
But changing the BarCap brand addresses the main problem: BarCap is known to the public as the entity of Barclays that hands out multimillion-pound bonuses.
The current co-heads of BarCap, or the investment banking arm as it will simply be known, Rich Ricci and Jerry Del Messier, got more than £40m apiece in 2010 when performance-related deals paid out. In 2011, the pair got £10m each in share payouts, although this does not include their salaries and other payments.
It could prove easy to change a name but tougher to change the payout culture.
