Barclays (LON:BARC) is to split its operation into four and sack up to 19,000 staff under chief executive Antony Jenkins’s plan to reposition the bank and revive its fortunes.
Jenkins also confirmed it would set up a bad bank and transfer into it hundred of billion pounds worth of assets where Barclays can’t see them making an adequate return.
Most of the job cuts will fall in Barclays’ investment bank operation with the announcement today that 7,000 staff there to go by 2016.
This year, 14,000 jobs are scheduled to go across the bank, some 10% of the workforce. Some 2,000 of these will be at the investment bank.
Jenkins said: “This is a bold simplification of Barclays. We will be a focused international bank, operating only in areas where we have capability, scale and competitive advantage.”
The four new business areas will be personal and corporate banking, which will include the retail, business and wealth management operations.
Barclaycard will become its own separate division, there will be an African bank and the slimmed down investment arm.
Barclays Non-Core, the bad bank, will contain risk assets of £115bn, with the target to reduce this to £50bn by 2016.
“In the future, Barclays will be leaner, stronger, much better balanced and well positioned to deliver lower volatility, higher returns, and growth,” Jenkins added.
Shareholders liked the plan, with shares rising by more than 5% to 256p.