Legal Business Blogs

Bonus time: four months on, Barclays GC Hoyt gets £700k in shares in reduced round of payouts

He may have only replaced Mark Harding late last year but Barclays‘ recently appointed group general counsel Bob Hoyt has been awarded more than £700,000 in shares just four months into the role.

Following 2013’s controversial bonus round, the bank announced yesterday (18 March) that it is rewarding 12 of its top executives almost £32m in shares. This total is around 20% less than last year, when the bank paid out £40.2m in shares to nine of its executives.

The award saw Hoyt handed 302,596 in shares valued at 232.59p each, worth £703,808. From this, Hoyt sold 142,221 shares at 231.85p per share, equating to just over £329,739 to meet tax liabilities.

The largest payout was made to US chief Hugh ‘Skip’ McGee, who was given more £8.87m in shares, followed by co-chief executive of corporate and investment Eric Bommensath, who was awarded £8.6m, while chief executive Antony Jenkins received shares worth £3.82m.

Hoyt joined Barclays in October 2013 from PNC Financial Services Group, after a search to fill the big shoes of Harding, who announced plans to leave in February. By way of comparison, Harding received a huge £3.7m in shares under a long term incentive plan at 308.1p each for a total of 1.224m shares.

Barclays has attracted much criticism for boosting its 2013 total bonus pool despite its profits shrinking by 32% to £5,167m before tax, and an overall 4% reduction in income in 2013.

Last year, it began the biggest capital raising by a UK bank since 2009, on which Clifford Chance, Sullivan & Cromwell and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer  led on the initial £5.8bn issue, as the bank aimed to plug a £12.8bn funding gap.

In 2012, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Barclays Bank £59.5m for misconduct relating to the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (EURIBOR) – the second largest fine since 2011.

Jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk