Barclays Adds New Risk Manager

   (FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 2/1/16) 
   By Max Colchester and Emily Glazer 

Barclays PLC unveiled a management shuffle, replacing long-serving chief risk officer Robert Le Blanc with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan.

The U.K.-based lender said that Mr. Venkatakrishnan would join from J.P. Morgan Chase in May. Mr. Le Blanc, who helped steer the bank through the aftermath of the financial crisis, will become Barclays's vice chairman of risk and strategy.

The hire is the first major management change that Barclays Chief Executive Jes Staley has made since taking on the job late last year. Mr. Staley, who also is a J.P. Morgan alumnus, is assessing the bank's strategy amid lackluster returns. Last week, Barclays said it would cut more than 1,000 jobs across its investment bank as it withdrew from several locations around the world. The bank also plans a strategic retreat from Africa.

Mr. Staley is likely to make other new hires to freshen up the bank's management team, analysts say.

The bank may be in the market for a new chief executive for its investment bank if Tom King steps down next year, analysts have said.

Mr. Venkatakrishnan spent several years as head of operational risk at J.P. Morgan.

"I am pleased to join Jes and his management team as they work to deliver the performance Barclays's shareholders expect," he said.

Mr. Venkatakrishnan was associated with J.P. Morgan's roughly $6 billion trading loss known as the "London whale." As head of the bank's model risk group, he defended a risk model that warned of a giant loss at the bank related to the London whale that went unheeded. That was later included in a Senate report from its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. U.S. regulators dropped their case against the London whale trader, Bruno Iksil, in 2015.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 01, 2016 02:48 ET (07:48 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.