If I say that Bob Diamond richly deserves his promotion to chief executive of Barclays, I do not intend any snide reference to the fact that he is enormously rich.
If I say that Bob Diamond richly deserves his promotion to chief executive of Barclays, I do not intend any snide reference to the fact that he is enormously rich. The giant fortune he has amassed in bonuses during 12 years at the helm of Barclays Capital, the group’s investment banking arm, is held against him by his detractors — among them Business Secretary Vince Cable, who once told me he regarded Diamond as ‘the most grievous example’ of City greed and insensitivity to public feeling. But you don’t have to love Bob to admire him for having built an extremely robust and profitable trading business for Barclays during an era of unprecedented market turmoil. His bargain-priced acquisition of the rump of Lehman Brothers in 2008 turned out to be the deal of the decade, and his division chipped in £3.4
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