MOVES-Barclays taps JP Morgan's Throsby to run investment bank

By Steve Slater

LONDON, Sept 5 (IFR) - Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) has poached another executive from JP Morgan to head its investment bank, leaving the British bank with seven of its most senior bankers as alumni of its US rival.

Barclays on Monday named Tim Throsby, currently global head of equities at JP Morgan, as president of Barclays corporate and international (BC&I) and chief executive of its corporate and investment bank.

He will run the investment bank and fill the gap left by the departure of Tom King in March. He will also be in charge of corporate banking, Barclays' UK and US credit cards, wealth management and the payments business.

It fills the last major senior appointment by Jes Staley since he joined as chief executive in December 2015.

Throsby, an Australian, is expected to join in January and will be based in London. He will join the executive committee and report to Staley.

Throsby adds to a bulging group of former JP Morgan bankers at Barclays, including Staley himself, who used to run its investment bank.

They include finance director Tushar Morzaria; chief operating officer Paul Compton; and chief risk officer CS Venkatakrishnan.

Mark Ashton-Rigby, its chief information officer, and Emily Portney, chief financial officer for corporate and international, have also previously worked at JP Morgan, which prides itself on having a deep bench of talented bankers.

Throsby is well regarded at JP Morgan for helping strengthen its equities business and expand its electronic trading platform, people familiar with the matter said. JP Morgan ranked third for global equities revenues last year behind Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) , according to analysis firm Coalition.

Throsby joined JP Morgan in April 2010 as head of equity derivatives and was promoted to head of equities in September 2012.

He has held senior roles at a number of banks, including at Credit Suisse (LSE: 0QP5.L - news) and Macquarie before he joined Goldman Sachs in 1995 as co-head of equity derivatives for Asia and Japan. In 2002, he moved to Lehman Brothers to head the Asia and Japan equities division and then its global equities business in 2004, and in 2005 he joined US hedge fund Citadel, where he ran its Asian business from Hong Kong.

The appointment of Throsby effectively completes Staley's top team, at a time when his turnaround plan appears to be gaining traction but there are still considerable operational and strategic challenges ahead.

The bank has to separate its UK retail banking business by 2019 to shield depositors from any problems that could arise in its investment bank or other businesses.

The investment bank is being slimmed down, and Staley has quit some countries to pursue a transatlantic strategy focused on its two "home" markets of Britain and the US.