Best Global investment bank: Barclays Capital |
|
Also nominated: Deutsche Bank, HSBC and JPMorgan |
|
See also: * BarCap muscles into investment banking big league * Barclays Capital: Big risks remain in FICC * Protium affair betrays muddled thinking at Barclays Capital |
There’s an awful lot of negativity surrounding Barclays Capital, whether it’s from the markets or from the mainstream media. It’s about time people started to focus on the achievements of Bob Diamond and his management team – over the past 12 months, over the past three years since it took on Lehman in the US, and since the firm was reborn almost 15 years ago.
It’s easy to get distracted by the compensation of the bank’s executives, or miscalculations like the Protium spin-off, which even senior managers concede can leave the bank looking "too clever by half".
But here’s the real news. Barclays Capital now stands firmly as one of the world’s best half dozen banking and markets businesses. First it built its flow monster, especially in FICC, where only Deutsche Bank, and arguably JPMorgan, can match it.