Either domestic banks are allowed through merger to get much bigger, he would say, or they would become bit players in a globalising economy, and eventually marginalised by giant international players.Amen to that, Mr Barrett might say. Mr Taylor never got the chance to test his views, but Mr Barrett went so far as to argue them out before regulators, only to be rejected. Mr Taylor would sometimes point to Mr Barrett’s attempts to merge with the Royal Bank of Canada as a harbinger of things to come in Britain, which has a quite similar banking structure to Canada. Both Mr Taylor and Mr Barrett were firm believers in the necessity and eventual inevitability of banking consolidation within their respective countries. A flamboyant figure, Mr Barrett is credited with reinvigorating Bank of Montreal and restoring its fortunes, both nationally and internationally.Perhaps ominously, there are some interesting parallels between Mr Barrett and his predecessor at Barclays, Martin Taylor.
It wouldn’t do to foul up a second time.
As it happens, Sir Peter Middleton, chairman of Barclays, has been doing perfectly well without a chief executive, but he promised the City he would eventually find one, and on paper at least, Mr Barrett seems to be about as good as they come. Given the nature of our own dear tabloid press, that’s almost certainly wishful thinking. Barclays directors had better hope that experience has made Mr Barrett more thick skinned than he was. They have already failed once to get a credible overseas banker into the hot seat. Now estranged from Ms Sten, heading for London and determined on filling the vacant chief executive’s post at Barclays, he’ll be hoping the British press takes less interest in his personal life and more in what he can do for one of the nation’s largest clearing banks. BARCLAYS certainly can pick ‘em.
Matthew Barrett is best known in Canada, and probably beyond it too, not as a banker but as the man who married the high-profile jet setter and former companion of Adnan Khashoggi, Anne-Marie Sten. So fed up was Mr Barrett with Ms Sten’s constant appearances in Canada’s gossip columns and magazines, on one occasion in a fur bikini, on another minus kit altogether, that it apparently became a factor in his decision to quit as chairman of Bank of Montreal. But history tells us that, a few years from now, we shall all be wondering why Mr Byatt did not turn the screw even tighter.. The companies may whine that a 4.75 per cent return on capital is so low it plain makes the eyes water, and they can complain all they like that the regulator’s efficiency targets are impossibly optimistic.
