For Jes Staley, the head of the British bank Barclays, the curtain suddenly fell on the weekend after six years as a boss.

He is forced to vacate his post for apparently misrepresenting his relationship or meeting with convicted pedophile abuser and multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein.

This is the result of a preliminary report that the British financial supervisory authorities FCA and PRA delivered to the bank on Friday evening.

Philip Plickert

Business correspondent based in London.

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Barclays' board of directors quickly took action and on Monday announced the split from Staley, who had headed Barclays Bank, one of the most important investment banks in the City of London, since 2015. The new CEO will be CS Venkatakrishnan, the previous Head of Global Markets and Chief Risk Officer. The American-Indian banker known as “Venkat” has been with Barclays since 2016 and has previously been stationed in New York. Barclays' share price fell around 2 percent on Monday. The bank is now "in the eye of the storm", said the analyst Susannah Streeter of Hargreaves Lansdown.

For Staley, the abrupt exit is a deep fall.

The bank itself emphasizes that it is "disappointed".

But she also writes that the investigation "found nothing that Mr. Staley saw or knew about any of Mr. Epstein's alleged crimes".

Epstein died in an American remand prison in 2019, according to an autopsy of suicide.

At that time he was being investigated for the sexual abuse and pimping of underage girls.

He and his long-time partner Ghislain Maxwell are said to have fed the girls to other celebrities for sex as well.

In Great Britain, Prince Andrew is therefore in the pillory, who denies the allegations.

Visit to Epstein's private island

Staley and Epstein's relationship dates back to when the banker was head of JP Morgan's private banking division. The financier Epstein, well connected in the global financial, celebrity and political world, was an important client of JP Morgan until 2013. In 2008 Epstein was convicted of child prostitution. Even so, Staley apparently had a closer relationship with him than was necessary on business. In April 2015, for example, before he moved to Barclays, the banker and his wife drove on a sailing trip through the Caribbean past a private island of Epstein and sat with him over an hour-long meal.

The FCA and PRA report is not public, but according to media reports, the essence is that Staley did not give the Barclays board full transparency about his relationship or meetings with Epstein.

As it was said on Monday, Staley will challenge the results of the investigation report.

In the City of London, the banker's crash has been commented on with mixed feelings.

Some point to his merits that he made for Barclays.

Contrary to the advice of many, Staley stuck to Barclays' investment banking and was successful.

The bank, a major rival of Deutsche Bank, has performed well overall in its time.

The 64-year-old American Staley is described as a polite character.

However, mishaps and missteps increased during his time as boss.

He once fell for a prank and exchanged emails with a person posing as his board chairman, John McFarlane.

Worse, he commissioned an investigation into a whistleblower who wrote letters to the board in 2016 who questioned the competence of a friend of Staley's.

As a penalty from the FCA, Staley had to pay over £ 640,000 at the time, and an additional £ 500,000 Barclays bonuses were withheld.

At that time he could barely keep his job.

Financially, Staley is falling softly

The Epstein investigation against him had been running since February 2020 and has constantly distracted him during this time: He was planning to resign at the end of the year.

Now he fell before.

Financially it falls softly.

He is still entitled to twelve months' salary due to the notice period, this comes to 2.4 million pounds in cash and shares and an annual pension of 120,000 pounds, as the bank announced.

The new Barclays boss now takes the lead under the most unfavorable circumstances.

Venkat has worked for the British bank since 2016, having previously held senior positions in asset management and investment director at JP Morgan Chase for more than twenty years, where he managed around $ 200 billion in bonds.

The bank also emphasizes that Venkat, who holds a master's and doctorate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is a sponsor of "Embrace", the global multicultural network of Barclays.

After his promotion, he will receive a fixed annual salary of £ 2.7 million, plus performance-related bonuses of potentially almost the same amount.

Barclays employs 83,000 people worldwide and reported a good £ 3 billion pre-tax profit in 2020 despite the Corona crisis.