By Max Colchester and Jenny Strasburg 

LONDON -- Barclays PLC's new corporate-and-investment-banking boss, Tim Throsby, recently stood in a hall at the bank's London offices to address over a hundred members of his team and dozens of others who had dialed in from abroad.

He started by explaining who he is.

Last year Barclays Chief Executive Jes Staley turned to Mr. Throsby, a relatively unknown former J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. executive, to run Barclays International, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the bank's revenue. The 50-year-old Australian spent most of his career overseeing equities-trading desks. Now he is responsible for a franchise that includes German credit cards, rich clients in Switzerland and a bond-trading desk in New York.

How Mr. Throsby fares will help determine whether Barclays can thrive as one of the U.K.'s last diversified universal banks. It will also test Mr. Staley's decision to populate Barclays's senior ranks with executives from his former employer, J.P. Morgan.

In 2016, Mr. Staley unveiled a sweeping restructuring of Barclays, which included paring its hundred-year-long presence in Africa in favor of a contrarian bet to stick with its unloved investment bank. Shares have rallied 50% over the last 12 months, helped by the prospect of rising rates.

"The key question is whether Barclays is benefiting from a rising tide or whether the action he is taking is a dominant driver," said Thomas Moore, an investment director at Standard Life Investments, which owns shares in the bank.

To turn around the British lender, Mr. Staley handpicked a team from J.P. Morgan. Barclays's chief financial officer, chief risk officer and chief operating officer are alumni of the U.S. bank. Finding someone to run Barclays International was the last piece of the puzzle.

Known for his tieless appearance, Mr. Throsby built a reputation as a decisive, and at times abrasive, operator over a three-decade career, according to people who worked with him. At J.P. Morgan, he overhauled the equities franchise, competing fiercely to access the bank's huge balance sheet and allow clients to take more risk. Former colleagues and clients expect the rugby-loving executive to repeat the feat at Barclays's investment bank. Through a spokesman, Mr. Throsby declined to comment.

"He has significant global experience," said Francis "Frank" Troise, chief executive of ITG, a New York-based brokerage and markets-technology company, who previously worked closely with Mr. Throsby at J.P. Morgan. Under Mr. Throsby, he said, "business gets done."

Barclays has no immediate plans to pump more capital into Mr. Throsby's unit, according to a person familiar with the matter. However, the executive will have freedom to reallocate resources to the investment bank from within his wider business, which includes big corporate customers, a U.S. credit-card business and wealth management, this person said.

Mr. Throsby forged his career in Asia jumping between big investment banks. After stints at Macquarie Group, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Lehman Brothers, he moved to Citadel LLC in Hong Kong. When the hedge-fund firm retreated from Asia in the throes of the financial crisis, Mr. Throsby quit and traveled to the U.K. to study law at Oxford University. He never finished. In 2010, he joined J.P. Morgan to run its European equity derivatives business. It was there Mr. Throsby caught the eye of Mr. Staley, who was heading up the lender's investment bank at the time.

By 2012 Mr. Throsby was in charge of J.P. Morgan's lagging equities division. He helped overhaul electronic trading and attract more hedge-fund business. He pushed to bring more capital to the equities division and to allow clients to take more risks, according to executives who worked with him. At times, he butted heads with other managers at the bank by encroaching on their territory, people who know him say, such as by helping clients trade in regions overseen by other managers.

Between 2012 and 2016, J.P. Morgan's equity-markets income rose 30% to $5.74 billion, in part fueled by its equity-derivatives business.

Mr. Throsby, who has six children, also found time to buy and renovate his old family home, Throsby Park, an Australian colonial-era estate.

Last year Mr. Staley spent months wooing Mr. Throsby away from J.P. Morgan, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Throsby was hired in part on the understanding he would join the bench of Mr. Staley's long-term successors, which include Chief Operating Officer Paul Compton, another former J.P. Morgan executive, these people say.

Shortly after Mr. Throsby's hire was made public last September, Mr. Staley held a meeting. Some Barclays bankers had privately grumbled that they were being overlooked for top jobs. When no one asked him why he kept hiring people from J.P. Morgan, Mr. Staley addressed the issue himself. The next year would be tough, he said, according to a person who was present. "Let us fix the bank for you," he said.

Juggling Barclays International will be difficult, analysts say. Mr. Throsby will have to encourage big corporate-banking clients to do business with the investment bank. Capital will be tight and his success will be determined by his ability squeeze out returns from his unit's balance sheet, colleagues say.

One particular focus will be ensuring the bank's U.S. unit passes the Federal Reserve's upcoming stress tests. Barclays acquired a large chunk of that franchise from Lehman Brothers after it collapsed during the financial crisis. And it will be from offices on a trading floor of the old Lehman building in New York and another in London that Mr. Throsby will help steer the bank.

Write to Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com and Jenny Strasburg at jenny.strasburg@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 18, 2017 07:14 ET (12:14 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Barclays (NYSE:BCS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Feb 2024 to Mar 2024 Click Here for more Barclays Charts.
Barclays (NYSE:BCS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2023 to Mar 2024 Click Here for more Barclays Charts.