For more than a year, activist hedge fund manager Edward Bramson has been agitating for Barclays to get rid of its investment bank, because it sucks. After for more than a year, Barclays CEO Jes Staley has held off his bizarro doppelgänger—rather triumphally, it must be said. Well, Bramson hasn’t sold his shares and gone back to Connecticut. Having, as he says, “the necessary resources to engage constructively with the company for as long as possible,” Bramson has been biding his time. For this, as it turns out.
“Several months ago we raised our concerns with you about the regulatory issues and the consequences for Barclays of the Epstein imbroglio,” Mr. Bramson wrote in the letter to investors in a Sherborne fund holding Barclays shares, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “This is another example of governance weakness that has led, inevitably, to the recurrent public disappointments and embarrassments which have plagued Barclays for so long….”
“We are hopeful that the board will treat these matters seriously and that Mr. Higgins will be able to indicate what long-term governance changes the board will make to end this cycle of disruption,” Mr. Bramson wrote.
Barclays Probe Signals ‘Governance Weakness,’ Activist Investor Says [WSJ]