Diamond to be paid £6.5m bonus
Bob Diamond, the new chief executive of Barclays, will be paid a bonus of £6.5m for last year, according to Reuters sources.
Barclays will reveal remuneration details for executives later on Monday, before the full release of its annual report.
Diamond is one of the highest paid bankers in Europe and could prove to be the best paid UK bank executive for 2010.
The award is less than the 10 million pounds media reports said he was in line for and comes amidst a continuing scrutiny in the UK of industry bonuses and an agreement by banks to show restraint on pay, the person familiar with the matter said.
The award will not include any upfront cash. It will consist of deferred shares and the rest in an instrument that is linked to Barclays’ capital strength and only pay out if its core Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio stays above seven per cent, the source said.
The bank declined to comment.
Diamond took over as chief executive at the start of this year after running the bank’s investment banking division. He was paid a base salary of 250,000 pounds.
He waived his bonus for 2009 and 2008 but was paid £21m for 2007 and received big payouts in previous years which prompted former senior politician Peter Mandelson to describe him last year as “the unacceptable face of banking.”
Barclays and its investment bank arm fared better than most rivals during the financial crisis, however, and emerged as one of the relative winners. Unlike Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group it avoided taking taxpayer bailout cash, opting to instead raise funds with wealthy Middle East investors.