What’s the difference between a banker and a pizza? A pizza can feed a family of four. So ran one of Vince Cable’s jokes when he presented the British Press Awards last week – but there is a crucial flaw. He reckoned without the financiers running an exchange-traded business fund named iShares. It is a subsidiary of Barclays and is 4.5% owned by senior Barclays staff. It has today been sold to CVC Capital, a private equity firm for $4.4bn – most of this money borrowed from, erm, Barclays (no difficulty finding credit there!). Result: payday for the lucky few with equity in iShares – about £1.6 million each – and £10 million for Bob Diamond, president of Barclays (who made £21m in 2007).
All this leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth. I have admired the way Barclays has sought more expensive money from the Arab world rather than take a state bailout.
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