Barclays is hiring investment bankers to cover Europe, from London

Barclays is building out its investment banking business in Continental Europe. As our German editor reports today, the British bank is said by headhunters in Frankfurt to be recruiting a head of investment banking for Germany to replace Alexander Doll, plus a new head of equity capital markets for Germany, Austria and the Nordic countries. This follows a report in Financial News to the effect that Barclays has an "aggressive hiring" programme in Continental Europe.

Barclays has certainly been doing some Europe-related recruitment. Since the start of this year, it has added eight managing directors to its EMEA business, of which two were internal moves and the remainder were hired externally.

Barclays has 10 offices in EMEA, located in Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Lisbon, Milan, Zurich, Dublin, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Tel Aviv. Nonetheless, all but one of the new hires are based in London.

A case in point is Enrique Piñel, who came to Barclays this month from J.P. Morgan as head of the financial institutions group (FIG) for Iberia. Although Barclays has an office in Madrid, Piñel - who worked in London covering Iberian clients for J.P. Morgan - is working out of Canary Wharf. Piñel will report to Luis Zumárraga, head of capital markets and risk solutions for Iberia, who is based in Madrid.

Francois Baroin, a senior external advisor to the French business, is Barclays' only senior EMEA hire who's based outside the UK this year. The British bank's affinity for London is contrast to rivals like Goldman Sachs. Goldman has said it plans to double the size of its investment banking team in Europe in the next three to five years and to move "tens" of London bankers to Paris by the end of this month. 

It's not clear whether things will change at Barclays as the British bank adapts to Brexit. For the moment, the new recruits are understood to about increasing returns rather than responding to Britain's break with the EU. Barclays' market share for the investment banking division in EMEA is understood to be around 5%, while in the UK it's closer to 10% - creating the opportunity for growth. In Frankfurt, Barclays currently employs around 170 people and insiders say there's still some room for expansion in the office, "but not every much".

Suitcase banking may remain a thing, then.