Barclays restructured its European credit team and someone seems to have lost out

Barclays is in the midst of cutting 200 jobs as it seeks to shave £700m ($942m). Coincidental with these cuts, it appears to have restructured its credit trading team in London but it hasn't let senior figures go.

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Instead, one of the bank's most senior credit traders in London has what looks a lot like a smaller job. 

Finbar Cooke has spent nearly fourteen years at Barclays, where he became head of CEEMEA credit trading in 2018 and co-head of credit trading for Europe with Michael Khouri in 2021. Following the recent changes, Cooke is merely co-head of CEEMEA credit trading instead.

Cooke's new CEEMEA credit trading co-head, Josh Jegan Thomas, was hired from Barclays in 2023, where he was a VP. Jegan Thomas was only promoted to head of CEEMEA credit trading in April 2025. Now, he and Cooke are suddenly sharing the job.

Khouri, meanwhile, is understood to have retained his role and is thought to be running all of EMEA credit trading, with a focus on high yield and distressed. In the absence of Cooke, Barclays' London investment grade credit traders are understood to be reporting more closely to Yoni Gorlov, the bank's New York based co-head of US investment grade credit trading, who's now singlehandedly running investment grade and emerging market credit trading globally. 

The changes are part of a broader restructuring aimed at aligning the credit team with Barclays' business priorities. They are understood to be entirely unrelated to the current courst case between Barclays and Kamal Sandhu, its ex-Head of Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) credit trading. 

Sandhu alleges that Cooke, among others, received an NFT created by Barclays' trader Ovie Faruq after Faruq left the bank in 2021. Barclays investigated the case and found no breaches in its gift and entertainment policy. In a statement, Barclays said: “Mr. Sandhu’s case is without merit and Barclays will continue to vigorously defend its position in the current litigation.”

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