Barclays Plc is poised to name veteran Canadian investment banker Geoffrey Belsher as its new chairman and chief executive officer for Canada.
(Bloomberg) — Barclays Plc is poised to name veteran Canadian investment banker Geoffrey Belsher as its new chairman and chief executive officer for Canada.
Belsher, who previously held senior roles with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Lehman Brothers in Canada, starts the new job on Monday, according to a statement seen by Bloomberg.
His appointment comes after several bankers including Bruce Rothney, the previous Barclays Canada CEO, left for Jefferies Financial Group’s Canadian unit in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter. A number of others including financial services analyst John Aiken also left to join Jefferies. The Globe and Mail was first to report those departures. Spokespeople for Jefferies and Barclays declined to comment.
Belsher will be based in Toronto and report to Richard Haworth, Barclays’ CEO of the Americas, as well as co-heads of investment banking Cathal Deasy and Taylor Wright.
Barclays has been in Canada for almost a century and it “continues to be a critical market for us as we execute on our ambitious growth plans in the Americas,” Haworth said in the statement. “Geoffrey’s focus, leadership experience, and deep expertise in the Canadian market makes him an ideal choice for this role, and I’m confident that our talented colleagues in Canada will benefit enormously from his guidance and counsel.”
The recent departures from Barclays give Belsher the opportunity to build his own team at the firm, said a person who knows the new CEO but wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the appointment.
(Updates with additional comment in final paragraph)
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