Barclays to cut more than 200 investment bank jobs to reduce costs: Sources

LONDON – Barclays is preparing to cut more than 200 jobs in its investment bank in the coming days as part of chief executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan’s plan to boost the profitability of the division.

Staff in investment banking, global markets and research will likely be affected, according to people familiar with the matter. Managing directors will be the most senior roles affected, they added. The reduction represents about 3 per cent of the investment bank’s headcount.

The cuts are meant to give the bank more capacity to invest in priority areas, one of the people said. In markets, the bank has been focused on boosting its market share in European rates, equity derivatives and securitised product trading.

In investment banking, the firm has been looking to bolster the revenue it generates from equity capital markets and mergers and acquisitions, in particular across the healthcare, industrial, tech and energy transition industry groups.

The move is not a sign that the bank is retrenching away from any products or asset classes, the person added. Although it is prioritising growth elsewhere, Barclays has committed to its costly transatlantic investment banking model in the face of pressure from investors over the years. 

“Like other banks, we regularly review our talent pool as part of our ongoing business operations to ensure continued investment in priority areas,” a Barclays spokesperson said in a statement. The lender made similar reductions just over a year ago. 

Mr Venkatakrishnan has been under pressure to boost returns across the investment bank, which consumes large amounts of capital compared with other higher-returning parts of the business. He has said the division will not be allocated any additional risk-weighted assets from the parent company in the coming years, even as it navigates higher capital requirements from global regulators. 

The CEO set out a new strategy in 2024 that anticipated about £2 billion (S$3.49 billion) of efficiency savings across the bank by 2026, helping to boost earnings and return £10 billion to investors.

Barclays’ investment bank is by far its largest division, generating £11.8 billion in revenue in 2024, up 7 per cent from a year earlier. The bank is known as a powerhouse in fixed-income markets – though it has been investing heavily in its prime and equity divisions in recent years to catch up to rivals.

The bank has seen its market share in investment banking inching upwards after it had roles on deals including Alphabet’s US$32 billion (S$41.15 billion) purchase of Wiz Inc and Sunoco’s acquisition of Parkland Corp for about US$9.1 billion including debt. Within markets, revenue for the first three months of the year jumped 16 per cent as the firm’s stock traders posted their best quarterly haul in almost three years.

Investors seem to be happy with the bank’s progress so far, with shares up about 24 per cent in 2025. That is better than the 8 per cent advance of the FTSE 100 index. BLOOMBERG