Barclays Capital

The overview

Barclays Capital (BarCap) is the investment banking wing of Barclays Group. The firm strengthened its position in this field in 2008, with its acquisition of Lehman Brothers’ US investment banking and capital markets businesses. Clients tend to be corporations and governments, rather than wealthy individuals.

BarCap’s investment banking wing is now regarded as one of the strongest in the industry and currently generates most of the Barclays Group’s profits. This area of the business - differentiated from others such as Barclays Wealth and Barclays Corporate in terms of clients and services offered - was founded in 1997, and has made rapid progress to become a key player in the financial markets. It had already established its expertise in foreign exchange and interest rates prior to the Lehman Brothers deal, which provided the knowledge and client base needed to expand its operations in mergers and acquisitions and equities sales and trading.

BarCap’s activities are extremely wide-ranging, as with any investment bank, and cover the following areas:

• Finance
• Global markets
• Operations
• Global financial risk management
• Technology

Each is broken down into a series of sub-divisions, several of which recruit graduates.

Awards and rankings

• Ranked 8, Vault Banking Europe 25, 2011.
• Ranked 28 in Times Top 100 Graduate Employers, 2011-12.
• Ranked 161 in Guardian UK300, 2011. Ranked 5 among investment banking and investment recruiters.
• Barcap’s trading tool, BARX, has frequently won awards over the last five years in Profit & Loss Magazine’s DigitalFX Awards.
• Best Diversity in Work Experience Award from the website RateMyPlacement, 2011
• 'Bank of the Year' at International Financing Review (IFR) Awards, 2011

Salary and benefits

Like other investment banks, Barclays Capital tends not to be specific about its basic starting salary for graduates and says only that it is competitive.

This, according to the most recent report from the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), would put the starting salary somewhere around £38,000.

Benefits

• Joining bonus
• Performance-related bonus
• Private healthcare
• Save As You Earn (SAYE) share option scheme
• Personal training and development budget (around. £2,000)
• Contributory pension scheme
• 25 days’ holiday

Culture and values

BarCap had identified five key principles that are central to its work:

1. Client focus: putting the customer’s interests first. Employees should work for clients rather than around them, and should be mindful that the bank cannot operate without its clients.
2. Trusted: a key concern in the financial industry at the moment, and an issue that Barclays Group chief executive Bob Diamond has been quizzed about recently by various sections of the press. With several banks rebuilding reputations following recent financial turmoil in the markets, when applying to firms such as Barclays Capital it’s important to come across as someone who would be able to show clients they are in safe hands.
3. Pioneering: this ties in with the value placed on getting there first at Barclays, with the wider Group having been responsible for a number of industry firsts in the past. The Employer Insight on Barclays Retail and Business Bank (RBB) has more information on this. In the case of Barclays Capital, this refers to the capacity to think in an abstract manner and come up with inventive solutions and proposals, typically for individual clients, to further the reach and reputation of the business.
4. The best people: this notion of excellence will be of particular interest to any graduate or intern. It will not be enough to know a bit about the markets and have a few strengths in presenting to colleagues. Rather, applicants need an in-depth knowledge of the relevant area of the business, how it interacts with other areas and the current major factors in global markets affecting Barclays Capital. This is not just for the recruitment process, but for day-to-day work once in the job as well. The ‘best people’ have these qualities. They are also capable of furthering the business through business connections made through networking, and generating innovative ideas for client service with colleagues.
5. Winning together: this refers to a team ethic that is not only found in individual offices, but is also prized in national and international offices and teams working with one another for mutually beneficial goals.