Barclays 'bad bank' chief Bommensath to quit at end-January

[LONDON] British bank Barclays's said its "bad bank" business head Eric Bommensath will leave at the end of this month after 17 years at the bank.

Mr Bommensath was formerly the co-head of Barclays' investment bank and was put in charge of the bad bank, which was set up in May and tasked with getting rid of assets the bank does not want.

Most of the assets were from the investment bank, but it also included its retail banking operations in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal.

Barclays said on Wednesday two other bad bank executives, John Mahon and Harry Harrison, will take over as co-heads of the business.

Barclays set up the bad bank as a key part of its plan to shrink the bank, especially its investment bank, in an effort to cut costs and get rid of unwanted assets to improve returns for shareholders.

Barclays put around 115 billion pounds (US$174 billion) of risk-weighted assets into the bad bank in May and intends to cut that to below 50 billion pounds by the end of 2016. The bank said the non-core assets had been reduced to 81 billion at the end of September.

REUTERS