Barclays' Executive Chairman Explains Why CEO Antony Jenkins Was Fired

Barclays PLC (ADR) (NYSE: BCS) announced on Wednesday that its board has fired CEO Antony Jenkins and a search for Jenkins' successare lor is underway.

John McFarlane, executive chairman at Barclays, was on CNBC recently to explain why Jenkins was sacked.

Different Agenda Now

"We have been on a journey for the last six years after the global financial crisis to recovery of the bank and to stabilize the situation," McFarlane began. "Of course, in between, we had the management crisis, as you know. That's been a very important period for the company, and as far as we are concerned, Antony has done a brilliant job to stabilize the organization and to take us to where we are now."

Related Link: Barclays' Shares Up 3.5% After Company Announces Jenkins' Departure

He continued, "The problem is that going forward, there is a different agenda now. We have just had a strategy meeting of the board where we endorsed the way forward and, what was clear was the execution of that strategy – bringing forward the returns for shareholders – was the absolute priority. And therefore we wanted to bring it forward."

Nothing Was 'Done' Wrongly, Just Subpar Execution

On whether Jenkins had done anything wrong, McFarlane said, "He hasn't done anything wrong. He is just the right guy for that time; he is not the right person to take us forward."

McFarlane was asked if Jenkins wasn't good at execution. He replied, "Yes, the question is execution."

He elaborated, "It's a very concrete type of organization. It's not fast moving. It's not lean. It's not agile. It is with customers, but it isn't in terms of execution.

"Our efficiency levels are low; our capital is being used in the wrong way. We really need just to deal with that very quickly."

Image Credit: By Stefan Schäfer, Lich (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons