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James Staley

New York. – Barclays PLC is preparing to name former JP Morgan Chase & Company executive Mr James Staley as its next CEO, as the British institution turns to an American investment banker to lead it out of a rut.

The appointment could be made in the coming weeks, a person familiar with the matter said.

It follows a three-month search led by Barclays executive chairman Mr John McFarlane after the ouster of former chief executive Mr Antony Jenkins in July over concerns about lacklustre performance.

The choice signals an important change of direction at the bank. Mr Jenkins had led a strategy to make Barclays less reliant on its investment-banking operations, cutting thousands of jobs at what was once its profit engine after a series of scandals and declining returns troubled investors and regulators.

A decision to appoint a veteran investment banker like Mr Staley signals a reconsideration of that retreat.

Barclays is one of a number of European banks that is scaling back operations under new leadership at a time when American rivals have regained their footing after the financial crisis and looking to grow.

Mr McFarlane rued that mismatch in July, saying US banks “are the only ones that really claim to be global and successful”.

Mr Staley, 58 years old, is an avid sailor known as “Jes” to his colleagues and friends. He worked his way up the ladder over more than three decades at JP Morgan, rising to run its asset-management unit before taking over the reins of JP Morgan’s investment bank in 2009.

He left JP Morgan in 2013 to join hedge fund BlueMountain Capital Management LLC. The hedge fund bet against JP Morgan in the large derivative trade amassed in early 2012 by a trader for the bank nicknamed the “London whale,” at one point scoring gains of around $30 million, according to people familiar with the trades. BlueMountain later helped the bank exit from some of its money-losing positions.

Mr Staley acquired a stake in BlueMountain when he joined the firm. He also holds a board seat at Swiss banking giant UBS Group AG.

Barclays’ plans to name Mr Staley as CEO were reported earlier by the Financial Times.

This is the second time Mr Staley is talking with Barclays about the top job. The first time, he lost out to Mr Jenkins, a longtime Barclays insider, who took the helm at the bank in August 2012.

“I think the Barclays conversations ultimately helped me define what I was really after,” Mr Staley said in a 2013 interview with The Wall Street Journal when he left JP Morgan.

Barclays’ big retail presence will be new territory for Mr Staley. Like other banks, Barclays is navigating big technological changes as its customer base increasingly moves away from physical branches to embrace mobile and online banking methods.

The bank posted a sharp rise in profit for the second quarter, but the results masked sluggish results in key areas.

Revenue at the investment bank was flat, and profit fell in retail and corporate banking. Mr McFarlane said the bank would retain capital and hold its dividend steady, and shed unwanted assets more quickly to get growing more quickly.

If Mr Staley gets the nod, it would be the second time in five years that Barclays is turning to a US investment banker to revive its fortunes — the first being former CEO Bob Diamond. It also marks the latest J.P. Morgan alumni to find a top job at a British bank. – Wall Street Journal.

Former J.P. Morgan executive Bill Winters was named chief executive of Standard Chartered PLC earlier this year.

Other former J.P. Morgan executives now run credit-card company Visa Inc.; payments processor First Data Corp.; and PNC Financial Services Group Inc., one of the nation’s largest regional banks.

Other names on Barclays’s short list of potential candidates included Morgan Stanley executive Colm Kelleher and Barclays’s recently appointed chief operating officer, Mr Jonathan Moulds, people familiar with the matter said.

The pool of candidates capable of running complex global banks is small. Credit Suisse Group AG went outside the industry in March to hire Tidjane Thiam, then chief of U.K. insurer Prudential PLC, as its next CEO.

“Jes has had a long career in banking doing a lot more than the securities business,” said Roy Smith, a professor at New York University and a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker. “But that’s a tough part of Barclays’s business for it to get right. Jes’s experience at the top levels of J.P. Morgan can only help.” –Wall Street Journal