Last of the old guard: Rich Ricci exits Barclays in management shake-up

Leaving Barclays: Rich Ricci, the racehorse-owning head of its investment bank (Getty Images)

Barclays today announced a major management shake-up which will see the departure of the racehorse-owning head of its investment bank Rich Ricci who collected a £17.6 million share bonus for last year which he cashed in almost immediately.

Ricci is the last of the old guard who helped to build BarCap into one of the world's biggest investment banks alongside former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond and BarCap co-chief executive Jerry del Missier - both of whom quit after the Libor scandal.

Aged 49, Ricci was described last month by Labour MP John Mann as being "out of touch". He has made millions at the bank with a bumper pay year in 2010 netting him £40 million.

The head of wealth and investment management, Tom Kalaris, said to have made around £4 million a year, is also stepping down at the end of June.

In a sign that Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins is wielding his power, both men will be paid up to one year's salary (£700,000 in Ricci's case and an undisclosed figure for Kalaris) for their notice period but will not get severance pay or be eligible for further bonuses. The bank also said existing bonuses tied in deferred shares could still be subject to clawbacks.

Jenkins said: "Given the importance of Corporate & Investment Banking, I want to de-layer the organisation - creating a closer day-to-day relationship and clearer line of sight for myself into the business. We will organise our activity into more clearly delineated client-focused product sets, consistent with the growth strategy we unveiled for the Investment Bank on February 12."

He has promoted the current head of markets, Eric Bommensath, and head of investment banking Tom King as co-chief executives of corporate and investment banking immediately.

Jenkins said: "This decision does mean that Rich Ricci will retire from the bank on June 30."

He has also created a new role of chief executive Barclays Americas which will be taken by Skip McGee from the start of next month.

This new post underlines the seriousness with which Jenkins is taking in cleaning up the whole culture of Barclays after the £290 million fine it was forced to pay by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic last summer for its role in rigging Libor.

Jenkins said that McGee would be "the primary public-facing executive in the Americas, he will also lead Barclays' regulatory engagement for the region." He added: "Skip will have geographic responsibility for our operations in that market, as well as for further enhancing our responsiveness to, and relationships with, the US regulators."

McGee was a former head of investment banking at Lehman Brothers before it went bust and the American business was taken over by Barclays in 2008.

Ricci owns 30 horses including one called Fatcatinthehat which ran at Cheltenham last month.