One of Barclays' pet rates traders disappeared and people are wondering why

Barclays is cutting costs in its investment bank. It is eliminating people who made managing director not so very long ago, and it is moving executive assistants to India. But there are people Barclays wants to keep. Top of that list, are surely members of the European rates team that are key to its growth strategy?

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When Barclays first unveiled this strategy in February 2024, head of markets Adeel Khan (himself a credit trader by background) said he wanted to reboot the European rates business, which had been underperforming. The bank has subsequently promoted former Goldman trader Hamza Houmaddy as head of European rates and hired new people like Samy Ben Aoun from Credit Agricole to run Continental European, as well as Ben Hutson from Garda Partners and Liam Webster from Morgan Stanley in London.

Insiders suggest Barclays' European rates trading revival is going well. Revenues are understood to be higher and people in the business are understood to be popular. "It's management's pet project," observes one trader on an adjacent desk.

And yet last week, one of the most popular people in the Barclays European rates team walked away. - Ankur Aneja, a managing director in euro swaps trading who'd been with Barclays for nearly twenty years, said he was leaving. Barclays isn't commenting, but Risk reported that he left for family reasons and is considering his next move. 

The suspicion internally is that Aneja may have taken voluntary redundancy. When this occurs, it's claimed that Barclays allows people to leave with all their deferred stock and to find a new job whenever they feel like it. Various headhunters suggest Aneja might join a hedge fund, maybe in Dubai. Aneja didn't respond to a request to comment, but he's understood to be chilling with his family and gently contemplating his next move. When he's ready, he won't be short of options. One senior hedge fund manager describes Aneja has great: "He will have many bidders, for sure." 

He's not the only rates trader to leave Barclays. Carl Scott, a former head of EMEA rates trading, left in March 2024 and joined hedge fund Brevan Howard last November. Michael Lubinksy, a senior rates trader at the bank in the US, joined Brevan last August. If Aneja joins Brevan, too, he will be in fine company. 

Leaving Barclays for a hedge fund is not always that simple, though. Kamal Sandhu, Barclays' ex-Head of Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) credit trading, left Barclays on a 'good leaver' package in 2023 and was allowed to keep $3m of deferred bonuses on the alleged understanding that he wouldn't work in a competitor role. When Sandhu - whose infant son was very ill - took a job at a hedge fund to pay the medical bills, Barclays suddenly attempted to reclaim all his stock. Aneja might want to tread carefully.

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