Avenging Ben Lawsky ensures Barclays' Jenkins gets just desert

Today's reading from the Bible (City edition) comes from the Book of Exodus

"Still the people of Barclays wandered in the wilderness. Their leader, Antony Jenkins, had come to them as a prophet of the true path. But now he was struggling to work out where they were on Google Maps. Pre-tax profit had dropped 26 per cent in the first quarter.

"The Lord looked down upon the Barclayites, but pitied them not, for the public mood was against it. So he called his chief operating angel to him and said: 'Smiting time. Any thoughts?'

"The angel spake thus: 'We've done plagues of frogs, locusts and boils. But there is an up-and-coming young seraph called Benjamin Lawsky who may prove an even greater pestilence. He's already given Standard Chartered what-for.'

"So the Lord sent Avenging Ben against the Barclayites in the guise of New York's financial regulator. And he tormented them sorely for bearing alleged false witness in the fixing of exchange rates.

"The Prophet Antony cried out, saying: 'This is a bit thick. We've had to make an extra £800m provision, taking the total for forex to £2bn, fully £1.3bn more than HSBC.'

"But Ben said: 'If Barclays didn't want to be regulated in New York, you shouldn't have registered here.'

"So for this, and other reasons, provisions for legacy issues just went on growing. For is it not written that the oversights of past management shall be punished unto the second and third generation?

"And thus it came to pass that Antony never led the people of Barclays to the promised land, nor to a clean P&L. John McFarlane, an elder of the tribe, kicked him out after bringing Five Commandments down from the mountain top. There should have been Ten Commandments. But, at Barclays, the final figure is always held back by provisions."

Pyramid scheme

Carlos the Jackal, Lord Lucan and . . . er . . . Mike Coupe? The chief executive of J Sainsbury would make an odd addition to any roll call of international fugitives from justice. However, the affable grocer narrowly avoided joining Interpol's wanted list by attending a court hearing in Giza, Egypt at the weekend.

As a result of left-field legal weirdness, Mr Coupe was last September sentenced to a two-year stretch in an Egyptian prison for a breach of trust. He did not attend that hearing because, according to Sainsbury, the Egyptian court neglected to invite him. His dash to the Land of the Pharaohs on Sunday was to lodge an appeal that means lawyers can now attend court in his place.

Sainsbury is at loggerheads with Amr El Nasharty, an erstwhile Egyptian partner. He alleges that 14 years ago the store chain sold him back a business that proved to be insolvent. Sainsbury claims his cheques bounced.

Long-running legal disputes have had a habit of blowing up and embarrassing bosses recently. Aviva came under pressure on Wednesday over insanely generous options granted to some French savers by a subsidiary. SuperGroup lost finance director Shaun Wills in February, when he was unexpectedly declared bankrupt. Happily the judgment was annulled and Mr Wills is back in work, at Jacques Vert.

Let us hope Sainsbury can placate the judicial geezers of Giza. That would leave Mr Coupe, who is a Clash fan, humming the punk band's tune Rock the Casbah rather than I Fought the Law (And the Law Won).

Exit velocity

Could it be a sign of advancing age that bankers defecting to M&A boutiques seem to be getting younger? Paul Taubman quit Morgan Stanley at 51, a conventional age for a bulge bracket deal-doer to fire up an escape pod and blast clear of the mother ship. But the trio he has lured to the European arm of his eponymous start-up PJT Partners - Simon Lyons from UBS, Rakesh Patel from JPMorgan Chase and Basil Geoghan from Citigroup - are in their early to mid-forties.

Corporate financiers mature slowly, like wisteria. So Mr Taubman must have hired the Three Mergerteers for what they might burgeon into, as much as what they are now.

The appeal of the boutiques is obvious. They offer the chance to work on big deals without the headaches of life at a modern universal bank. Some corporates have adopted a "one big, one small" formula for advisory panels, as illustrated by BG's use of Goldman Sachs and Robey Warshaw for its sale to Shell. Boutiques sometimes fly solo too: Centerview was sole adviser to Permira on its disposal of Iglo, as Zaoui & Co was to Alcatel-Lucent when Nokia came knocking.

Big investment banks moult staff constantly, but should still have qualms at seeing their ambitious young go-getters getting up and going. Particularly UBS, prime supplier of talent to the boutiques.

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