Jes Staley Stakes Barclays’s Future on Investment Banking

Jes Staley, the chief executive officer of Barclays Plc, is sitting in a conference room high above London’s Canary Wharf on an August afternoon. The conversation turns to risk. The Turkish lira is melting down, Brexit threatens to destabilize the British economy, and the world is bracing for any number of shocks, including European populism and a U.S.-China trade war. Reaching for his wallet, Staley says he isn’t too worried about those threats. He plucks out his Barclays credit card and holds it up: “This card is the biggest risk in the bank.”

Not every banker would say consumer debt is more dangerous than the risks a company such as Barclays faces in the capital markets. But then Staley is a true believer in the value of investment banking. Now he’s making his case that for all the drama at the lender in recent years—and there’s been plenty—there’s no better moment to make Barclays a global force in investment banking on a par with Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley, and his former company, JPMorgan Chase. Barclays is well-capitalized, it just notched two strong quarters of growth, and it recently settled legal entanglements that had long rattled investors. Taking on the U.S. giants means hiring more bankers, traders, and support personnel, winning more share in high-risk markets such as leveraged corporate loans, and doing it all without deploying more capital to the investment bank. “It’s time to let the bank run,” he says.