Staff options at BGI hit hundreds of millions

Barclays Global Investors sets aside 20% of its equity to give to staff as options to buy shares, and the scheme has seen options now worth hundreds of millions of pounds awarded to senior executives over the past few years.

"We offer the scheme because we need to attract the right type of talent, and we are competing with hedge funds and other investment businesses where similar if not greater reward schemes are on offer," says Naguib Kheraj, Barclays' finance director in The Times.

The Times says research by Evolution Securities shows employees at BGI have pocketed a whopping 1.26 billion in total.

Kheraj says, "This type of reward scheme is not unusual in these types of businesses, and the sums involved reflect the fact that the value of BGI has gone up by more than ten times in the last five years."