Barclays has ousted Frits Seegers, the £700,000-a-year chief executive of its global retail and commercial bank, as part of a dramatic overhaul of the bank’s management and business structure.

Mr Seegers, who was lured from Citigroup three years ago with a package worth £12 million, will stay on at the bank for a brief handover period, but he has resigned as a director with immediate effect.

The sudden shake-up at Barclays yesterday also involved the promotion of Antony Jenkins, the chief executive of Barclaycard, to the executive committee. He will take charge of a new division, to be called Global Retail Banking, reporting directly to John Varley, Barclays’ group chief executive.

Separately, Barclays said that Deanna Oppenheimer, a rising star at the group, would become vice-chair of global retail banking, in addition to her present job as chief executive of the UK retail bank. Valerie Soranno Keating was named as the new chief executive of Barclaycard.

Mr Seegers has won praise for driving a sharp rise in profits at the retail and commercial bank, but he is viewed by critics as a difficult character. Barclays insiders said that he was leaving because his job had been reduced substantially as a result of yesterday’s reshuffle.

Mr Seegers is entitled to an as-yet- unspecified sum in compensation for loss of office and has a notice period of 12 months. On his arrival, Mr Seegers received £8 million in cash and shares to cover bonus payments that he would have missed out on at Citigroup. He received a £2.5 million cash and shares performance bonus in 2007 and £1.6 million last year under a three-year long-term incentive plan. His final settlement is likely to comfortably reach six figures.

According to Barclays’ annual report, Mr Seegers owns approximately 900,000 Barclays shares, worth roughly £2.9 million based on yesterday’s share price. He also has options to buy a further 300,000 bank shares.

Barclays declined to comment on the terms of Mr Seegers departure yesterday. However, insiders said that any deal would fully comply with Financial Services Authority guidelines on remuneration and would most likely contain a substantial element of Barclays shares.

The Times revealed in August that Mr Jenkins had received several millions pounds in compensation after he failed to gain a seat on the bank’s executive committee. Barclays declined to comment yesterday on whether Mr Jenkins would be expected to repay the compensation.

Under yesterday’s plan, Mr Jenkins will run a division composed of UK retail banking, Barclaycard and the Western European and emerging markets components of Mr Seegers’s former global retail and commercial bank. A second new division, to be called corporate and investment banking and wealth management, has been created under Bob Diamond, Barclays’ renowned investment banking chief. Barclays Capital, Barclays Wealth and Barclays Commercial Bank — effectively the rest of Mr Seegers’s former empire — will form the division.

Jerry del Missier and Rich Ricci will be co-chief executives of corporate and investment banking, while Tom Kalaris, chief executive of Barclays Wealth, will run wealth management.

Q&A

So the revolving door at Barclays is spinning again. Who’s gone this time?

Frits Seegers, chief executive of the bank’s group retail and corporate banking division, is leaving

Why has he gone?

The official reason is because, after changes to the bank’s structure and senior management responsibilities, there is no longer a role for him

And the unofficial reason?

The suspicion is that Mr Seegers had become too powerful a counterweight to Bob Diamond, who heads the bank’s wholesale and investment banking side

Anything else?

Mr Seegers was — how can we put it — not everyone’s cup of tea. At Barclays and Citigroup, his previous employer, he had a reputation as being difficult to work with

Was he good at his job?

Yes, he was regarded as having done a decent job, albeit in a rather less showy way than Mr Diamond. He’s taken Barclays into a number of new markets, including Russia, signing up 20 million new customers in the process

Barclays has a reputation for chopping and changing its executives, doesn’t it?

You can say that again. It is an organisation that appears to be intensely competitive.

After John Varley became chief executive, a clutch of executives whom he had beaten to the top job subsequently left the bank.

Who’s the lucky lad succeeding Mr Seegers?

Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclaycard, will head a new division called Global Retail Banking. Wish him luck. (Ian King)

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