Barclays pay chief must step down, says UK pensions group

[LONDON] Barclays pay chief John Sunderland should step down immediately after the bank failed to honour a promise made last year that he would go, a group of British public-sector pension funds said on Monday.

Barclays said before its annual meeting in April last year that Mr Sunderland would step down and be replaced by Crawford Gillies. However, he is still chair of the bank's remuneration committee 11 months later.

Mr Sunderland had been criticised for allowing lucrative payouts to executives and investment bankers. "It is inexplicable how Barclays can have gone back on its promise to the 2014 AGM that Sir John would step down," said Kieran Quinn, chairman of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), an association of 64 public-sector pension funds with combined assets of about 160 billion pounds (S$334.1 billion). "Having messed up remuneration for 2013 Sir John has in fact stayed on as chair and presided over another year of still unacceptably high pay for 2014, and is still in place in March 2015. It's nothing short of misleading shareholders," he said.

Barclays said last April Mr Gillies would take over from Mr Sunderland "at a date to be agreed consistent with ensuring a smooth transition".

The bank declined to comment further on Monday.

Barclays said last week that it paid Chief Executive Antony Jenkins 5.5 million pounds last year, up from 1.6 million the year before. However, total bonuses paid by the bank fell by 22 per cent to 1.86 billion pounds.

REUTERS