Year end - Income tax Savings ~ Performance review and bonus : the Barclay's way

When one fears about future, the best way is to look for inspirational stories and motivating personalities……..  Come March, every salaried person in India is worried about tax ~ tax savings, how to make the ones that they had promised earlier trying to cut down personal Income tax…… and if not, the deductions in salary would drastically reduce the take home pay !!  March also heralds another ~ the expectation of performance review, expectation of promotion and more importantly that pay hike !!

Sure you need to know about Rich Ricci, the Barclays Banker…… and leave it to yourself to remain happy or unhappy.  Barclays plc  is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has operations in over 50 countries and around 48 million customers.  Barclays is a universal bank and is organised within two business 'clusters': Corporate and Investment Banking and Wealth and Investment Management; and Retail and Business Banking. Barclays has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

The situation is not far different in UK as many over there are worrying on whether the Budget would make them poorer – not Ricci, the flamboyant banker.  Daily mail reports that Barclays revealed yesterday that top ‘casino banker’ Rich Ricci had received a staggering £18million windfall ~ and  the jackpot was just one share of an astonishing £40million bonus payout split between nine Barclays executives.

In the same breathe, the bank provoked outrage for slipping out the announcement on the same day as the Chancellor delivered his austerity Budget – to pay for an economic crisis caused by bank bosses. Still, the Budget cuts must have seemed like small change to the flamboyant Ricci, who owns 11 horses which raced at Cheltenham Festival last week. They include Champagne Fever, which earned him a £68,340 bonus by winning the opening race, and the provocatively named Fatcatinthehat. In all, Ricci and his wife Susannah own 30 horses with Ireland’s champion trainer Willie Mullins, and have won £588,125 in prize money this season. They are said to travel to Dublin by private jet most weekends to watch the horses train. Ricci, who is worth an estimated £57million, was a key lieutenant of disgraced former Barclays boss Bob Diamond.

The 49-year-old has managed to cling on to his job despite jointly running the investment bank when Barclays was fined £290million for rigging Libor interest rates last summer. Yesterday’s jackpot, of £17.6million in shares from awards dating back over the past three years, is just the latest in a long line of big wins for Ricci, who also received £9.7million in share bonuses last year and cashed in a £40million pay and share package in 2010. The bank’s directors, including Ricci, chief executive Antony Jenkins and finance chief Chris Lucas, all gave up their bonuses for last year’s work after the bank was rocked by a string of scandals.

Perhaps as a compensation, now, they have been handed giant share bonuses awarded from previous years. It included a huge windfall for Jenkins, who has called for restraint on pay and promised to overhaul the bank’s culture.  In addition to the £2.6million he was paid for his work last year, he received awards worth £5.6million.

Some critics accused  Barclays as showing its insensitivity by engaging in the lowest form of corporate trickery. Another TU leader is quoted as saying that Barclays had made ‘a complete mockery of any claims banks are cleaning up their acts’.

The moral is in any gloomy atmosphere, Sun is always shining at some place benefitting some all the time…. And perhaps when you get your bonus, try buying race horse and if not enough, try playing your hand in race horse at least

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.