Why is BarCap losing FICC professionals?
Maybe it was inevitable. As we've already noted, Barclays Capital didn't do brilliantly in fixed income, currencies and commodities in the first quarter: revenues fell 67%.
In what may not be an entirely unrelated phenomenon, BarCap appears to be losing staff from its FICC business. As FX Week pointed out recently, it's been 'haemorrhaging' FX sales staff in New York and Asia, with nine people leaving in the US, and entire institutional sales team leaving in Singapore. In London, it's lost Giovanni Matteucci and Guido Arslan, possibly both to Nomura, as well as Richard Longmore, head of European institutional FX sales, whose destination is unknown.
And now its London-based head of FX is off too.
FX Week suggests the US FX exits are down to poor pay. "Some of BarCap's FX [sales] bonuses were below the industry standard of 8%-10%," it claims.
London headhunters suggest there's more to it than that, however. "BarCap's FX business is very aggressive," claims one. "They're determined to outdo Deutsche and a lot of the people we speak to are fed up with having that as the overriding aim."
The latest Euromoney survey suggests BarCap still has a long way to go in ousting Deutsche from the top FX spot: it ranks third with Deutsche first and UBS in second place.
Another London-based fixed income search consultant says pay at BarCap is also an issue: "Some fixed income sales people feel they've been paid 20-30% below the market for the second year running, and they're disappointed. There's a feeling that the business has plateaued," he alleges.
BarCap didn't return a call asking for comment.
