Barclays to hire up to 100 new staff for investment bank

Barclays is to hire between 50 and 100 new people and shake up the leadership of its investment banking business after it underperformed in the first quarter, reports say.

Citing sources, the Reuters news agency said Tim Throsby will become the interim head of the bank's markets division, with Joe Corcoran, who previous held the role, becoming vice chairman of markets.

Barclays' profits more than doubled in the January to March period to £1.7bn ($2.2bn), but income from its markets business declined 4% from a year earlier to £1.4bn.

The British bank blamed the fall on a subdued performance by its US rates business and the impact of exiting energy-related commodities.

Throsby, a former colleague of Barclays chief executive Jes Staley at JP Morgan, was brought in to shore up performance of the investment bank in January.

However, sources at Barclays told the Financial Times that the management shake-up was not a result of the underwhelming first-quarter performance, adding that it was natural for a new division head to want to make changes.

In other changes at Barclays, Joe McGrath will become the new global head of banking and John Miller will become the head of global industry coverage banking.

Staley said last month that Barclays planned to hire around 2,000 new staff in the UK over the next three years to expand the bank's technology development capabilities.

The chief executive faces regulatory probes in Britain and the US over his attempts to unmask a whistleblower at the bank.

Staley was formally reprimanded by the Barclays board last month for his attempts to unmask the author of an anonymous letter that was sent to the bank last year.

He apologised to shareholders for his actions at the bank's annual general meeting on 10 May.

"I feel it is important that I acknowledge to you, our shareholders, that I made a mistake in becoming involved in an issue which I should have left to the business to deal with," he was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.