Asia largely spared from global job cuts, says Barclays CEO Venkatakrishnan

By Jan-Henrik Förster and Haslinda Amin

Barclays Plc’s chief executive officer plans to spare its Asia business from the bulk of job cuts as the British bank embarks on a reduction in its global workforce.
 

“It is a reduction in workforce generally speaking,” CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan said in a Bloomberg TV interview Thursday in Singapore. “Proportionally, it is far less likely to impact” Asia, he added, citing the growing businesses there. 

However, he struck a cautious tone on expanding into markets such as China, which has seen diminishing interest from financial services firms in the past year amid the deteriorating geopolitical climate and economic outlook in the world’s second-largest economy. Venkatakrishnan said it would be “ambitious” for Barclays to consider expanding into wealth in China at this point in time, and the bank should instead focus on doing better in the UK.

Barclays, based in London, reported disappointing third-quarter earnings last month that prompted a fresh slide in the bank’s share price. In the UK, the tailwind from higher interest rates is slowing while Barclays’ traders couldn’t keep pace with US peers. 

That’s adding to pressure on Venkatakrishnan to clarify his strategic priorities for the coming years and bolster the bank’s valuation. The bank has said it will provide an investor update alongside full-year results in February and is “evaluating actions to reduce structural costs to help drive future returns, which may result in material additional charges” in the fourth quarter.

The bank has been working with consulting firm Boston Consulting Group to examine its strategy, Bloomberg has previously reported. So far, there’s been little indication whether there will be any major strategic changes.

For now, Barclays is streamlining its portfolio with the sale of a consumer-finance business in Germany and a possible sale of its merchant-acquiring business. Barclays’s investment bank is also nearing a deal with AGL Credit Management for a private credit fund, Bloomberg has reported.

“There will be some areas where we can become more efficient,” he said, adding that more detail would be shared in the new year. 

Barclays has been selectively expanding in Asia recently after former CEO Jes Staley unleashed a global round of job cuts five years ago that shuttered its cash securities operations across Asia. The bank had then scaled back operations in countries including Australia, South Korea and Malaysia, but kept its prime brokerage and derivatives business in the region. Unlike peers such as UBS Group AG and Citigroup Inc., Barclays currently has a small presence in China and operates through a single branch and a representative office.