Office address: 745 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019
Website: www.barclays.co.uk
Year established: 1965
Company type: financial services
Employees: 11,500+ (US)
Expertise: mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, debt financing, equity financing, risk management, research, trading, restructuring, leveraged finance, industry coverage across sectors
Parent company: Barclays PLC
Key people: C.S. Venkatakrishnan (group CEO), Anna Cross (group finance director), Craig Bright (group co-COO), Stephen Dainton (president), Anne Marie Darling (group co-COO), Cathal Deasy and Taylor Wright (global co-heads of investment banking)
Financing status: corporation
Barclays is a global financial services firm with a strong US presence, especially in investment banking. The company offers mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, and trading services. Its investment banking division, Barclays Capital, focuses on advisory, financing, and trading for institutional clients.
Barclays set up its first US affiliate, Barclays Bank of California, in 1965 in San Francisco. The company’s roots, however, reach back to London in 1690, when John Freame and Thomas Gould ran a goldsmith banking business on Lombard Street.
By 1736, James Barclay joined the family, and the name became a fixture in British banking. Over time, small family-run banks struggled to compete, so in 1896, twenty of them joined forces to create Barclay and Company Limited.
Quaker families helped shape the firm, bringing business ties and a reputation for trust. By 1896, the merged bank had 182 branches and 806 staff. Continuing mergers made Barclays the third largest bank in Britain by 1920.
Under Frederick Craufurd Goodenough, the bank acquired Colonial Bank, Anglo-Egyptian Bank, and the National Bank of South Africa. In 1925, these were merged to form Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas), which later became Barclays Bank International. At home, Barclays grew by acquiring Martins Bank in 1968 and by hiring more women, who outnumbered men on staff by 1962.
The company continued to evolve, acquiring The Woolwich in 2000 and Juniper Financial in 2004. The company also changed its structure, moving from local offices to regional and then centralized services.
In 1986, it launched its investment banking arm, which became Barclays Capital. This division expanded further in 2008 after acquiring parts of Lehman Brothers. In 2016, the firm focused its strategy on the UK and US, selling several international businesses and reducing its stake in Africa.
By 2018, the firm made its biggest structural changes in decades to meet new UK regulations. The company separated its UK retail and business bank from its international and investment bank.
Barclays Capital offers a broad range of investment banking and market solutions tailored to institutional and corporate clients:
Barclays Capital provides research and digital banking services as part of its global platform. The firm provides tailored solutions to support clients with risk management and financial objectives.
Barclays Capital states that its culture encourages people to be themselves and contribute in meaningful ways. The company also lists these values:
According to Barclays Capital, it aims to build a supportive, inclusive workplace where employees can bring their whole selves to work. Their benefits include:
Barclays Capital also describes valuing unique perspectives and skills, helping teams thrive together. The company shows a sense of belonging and community, encouraging every employee to feel recognized and included.
C.S. Venkatakrishnan is the group CEO of the firm, appointed in 2021. Before this, Venkatakrishnan led global markets and served as co-president of Barclays Bank PLC. Earlier, he worked at JPMorgan Chase in senior roles across asset management, investment banking, and risk.
Here are the key people leading Barclays, each bringing unique experience and focus to their roles:
The board creates Barclays’ strategy and the executive committee carries out those plans.
In 2024, Barclays Capital agreed to pay a $1.25 million fine after Finra found lapses in its fingerprinting and background checks for thousands of employees. The company is now updating its supervisory systems and has already fingerprinted nearly 1,800 staff to meet compliance rules. These changes help Barclays strengthen its internal controls, which support client trust and the firm’s long-term regulatory standing.
The company is also helping lead the surge in global mergers and acquisitions as the AI sector grows. The firm’s bankers are advising on some of the largest deals, such as Alphabet’s $32 billion purchase of Wiz. This activity positions it to support clients in major transactions and strengthens its advisory business for the future.
The second quarter opened up with high hopes and generally positive expectations for the remainder of the year. As noted last quarter, there was a wide variety of opinions on the strength of the recovery but a strong majority believed a recovery was in fact under way.
In a move into the retirement income market, Barclays Bank PLC on Sept. 1 will launch two structured-note products designed to provide income over 15- to 30-year time spans.
A securities industry regulator investigating abuses in mortgage-linked investments has focused on the activities of Morgan Stanley, Barclays PLC and Credit Suisse Group AG, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
As a new crop of money managers and investment banks enters the hot market of exchange-traded funds, the challenge already has proved too much for some in a sector where scale is key.
Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo are pushing their customers to buy more brokerage, savings and banking services from them as the weak economy and new regulations make it harder to earn money from loans and investment banking.
Pres. Obama's signature on the financial reform bill is barely dry. But Democrats and Republicans are already hustling to shape voters' opinions on the Dodd-Frank bill.
Complex reverse convertibles mostly sold to individual investors; 'inconceivable'
A growing number of quantitative equity managers are striving to match their computer models to changing market environments better as they fight to reverse the performance drought they've been in since the start of the financial crisis in mid-2007.
New York-based Optima Fund Management, a $6 billion fund of hedge funds, thinks farming is a growing business.
High-net-worth investors in the U.S. are more pessimistic about the economic recovery than wealthy individuals in many other nations, according to survey released today by Barclays Wealth.
Investors seeking the safety of government-insured certificates of deposit and a chance to profit from market rallies may end up earning nothing and owing taxes for their efforts.
Fidelity Investments today announced that it will offer its retail customers — and and its registered investment adviser clients via a separate program — commission-free online trades for a suite of 25 iShares exchange-traded funds from BlackRock Inc.
Declining share volume and strategies by fund managers to hold down the cost of buying and selling stock may lower Wall Street trading commissions in 2010, defying forecasts for an increase, Greenwich Associates said.
Jacked-up rates have wealthy Americans desperately seeking soothing. Muni bonds and Roth IRAs could help lessen the pain
Barclays Wealth has hired Don Milich and Clifford Wang as investment representatives, based in Atlanta, as part of its effort to continue growing its wealth management operations in the U.S.
