Euromoney takes a look at the unique reinvention of the wealth-management division of Barclays

Recently, I had a delicious gossipy lunch with a well-placed mole. Mole put forward an interesting theory about the UK banking arena: “In the old days”, he intoned, “banks and investment banks were seen as wealth creators and a force for good. For every pound earned by a slick banker, four pounds would be spent in Porsche show-rooms, London restaurants and poodle parlours. Now banks are seen as a force for evil.”

More than 500 people gathered at the Brewery in London on July 7 to receive their awards – and help raise almost £600,000 to build a school in one of Africa’s biggest slums.

Behind Jerry del Missier, Rich Ricci and Bob Diamond, the three men most renowned for building Barclays Capital, there is another cadre of long-standing members of the same executive team with lesser public profiles. French national Eric Bommensath, head of FICC and head of EMEA trading, joined Barclays Capital from Bankers Trust in the dark days of 1997 as head of derivatives. Now he wrestles with an uncertain outlook for the businesses he heads. He echoes Jerry del Missier in expressing surprise at the extra capacity rival banks rebuilt in 2009 and 2010 after the long period of innovation and growth in FICC had come to a brutal stop in 2007 and 2008.

Can the market trust Barclays’ numbers? The bank doesn’t like the question but only has itself to blame that it still comes up.

Already a powerhouse in FICC, Barclays Capital is muscling its way into the upper echelons of global M&A advisory and equity capital markets. Its three-year investment programme to build global franchises on the back of Lehman’s US rump is nearly done. The firm’s bosses promise shareholders that they are about to reap the dividends and that revenues and income will flow in. The handful of leading global investment banks have a new competitor to deal with.