Diamond cashes in £5m shares for Christmas

Bob Diamond, the president of Barclays, has pocketed nearly £5m after selling 18 per cent of his shareholding in the bank.

Mr Diamond, the head of Barclays' investment banking business, recently moved back to the US to oversee the integration of Lehman Brothers Wall Street business into Barclays. He sold 985,585 shares at 275p each on Tuesday and another 814,415 shares at 277.07p each yesterday. Shares in Barclays closed at 275.5p yesterday.