THE activist investor who is pushing for a strategic shift at Barclays has hit back at the bank's directors after they urged shareholders to oppose his appointment to the board.
Edward Bramson, who holds a 5.5 per cent stake in Barclays through his investment vehicle Sherborne, said the board must adopt a "more realistic and shareholder oriented" strategy.
He was responding to a statement issued last week in which the firm's directors argued that it was not in need of a strategic overhaul.
Mr Bramson has been an outspoken critic of the firm and has called for its corporate and investment banking arm to be shrunk.
Writing to fellow shareholders on Monday, Sherborne said an alternative voice on the board would be "healthy" and urged investors to back Mr Bramson's appointment.
"It seems to us that a board comprised of twelve or more senior business people should be able to accommodate and resolve occasional differences of perspective and arrive at better and more sustainable outcomes for shareholders than a board that cannot," it said.
"An alternative voice on the board would seem to be healthy for the company and its shareholders."
Responding to the board's claim that Mr Bramson does not have appropriate banking experience, the letter said: "By our count, five of the current directors already have banking or advisory backgrounds and we wonder how adding more could possibly make any substantive difference."
The letter also referenced reports that Tim Throsby, former head of the corporate and investing arm, clashed with Barclays chief Jes Staley over the "irreconcilable" gap between goals set by the board and targets for investor returns.
Sherborne said it hoped a warning of this nature would increase the board's awareness that the current strategy is placing "unreasonable demands on management".
The annual meeting will take place on May 2, when shareholders will vote on whether to appoint Mr Bramson to the board.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here