Jumat, 08 Juni 2012

A dismal jubilee: Barclays shares lower than 60 years ago

A dismal jubilee: Barclays shares lower than 60 years ago

By Ruth Sunderland

PUBLISHED: 16:18 EST, 7 June 2012 | UPDATED: 05:08 EST, 8 June 2012

Shares in Barclays Bank are lower in value today than when the Queen first came to the throne.

In 1952, when a youthful Queen was beginning her reign, the bank’s share price was 198.75p, or 39/9 in ‘old money’. But six decades later, when she celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, it stood at 173.5p â€" meaning that £100 invested in the bank’s shares 60 years ago would now be worth just £88.

Barclays is one of Britain’s most venerable companies, and traces its roots back to 1690 when a banking operation was established by two Quaker goldsmiths.

Dire performance: Over ten years, Barclays shares have fallen 30 per cent

Dire performance: Over ten years, Barclays shares have fallen 30 per cent

The share price figures do not take account of  inflation or for changes to the bank’s capital  over the past 60 years. But experts said the bank’s long term performance is still a damning  indictment of the stratospheric pay awarded to Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond.

His latest package tots up to a maximum of £27million of pay, perks and bonuses over several years.

‘Shareholders in Barclays have done terribly badly but executives and traders have received stratospheric rewards,’ said Deborah Hargreaves, director of the High Pay Centre.

‘It is a far cry from the 1950s when Barclays was a British institution and not trying to be a global casino bank. The managers from back then would surely have been horrified.’ 

Barclays dire decade - while bosses got paid bumper rewards

Barclays’ more recent performance has also been dire. Over ten years, the shares have fallen 30 per cent and anyone who bought five years ago would have seen their investment plunge by 76 per cent.

Chief executive pay at the bank has risen by 4899.4 per cent since 1979, according to the High Pay Centre.

The salary earned the Barclays boss in 1952, chairman Anthony William Tuke,  is not known as banks were not obliged to disclose the rewards paid to top  managers until 1993. Known as Iron Tuke for his steely personality,  he was a member of one of the founding Quaker families who dominated the bank well into the 1980s.

Under Tuke’s stewardship, Barclays  rose to the pre-eminent position on the high street, overtaking the Midland as Britain’s largest bank  in the late 1950s. Although he personally disliked automation, Tuke  transformed the bank into a leader in new banking technology.

It was the first to install computers in branches, and the first to have ‘hole-in-the-wall’ cash machines, along with the plastic revolution with the introduction of Barclaycard in 1966.

Global domination: good for bosses bad for shareholders

Diamond has led Barclays in a push to become a global bank and to compete with the giants of Wall Street in risky casino banking activities.

So far, his strategy has proved dismal. He admitted earlier this year that returns to shareholders have fallen short of his hopes.

The decline in the value of Barclays shares compares poorly  with other investments over the period of Elizabeth II’s long reign.

Buying a typical house 60 years ago would have cost £1,891, according to the Nationwide, and would today be worth £164,134.

An £100 investment in a broad basket of shares would now be worth just under £108,000. Even £100 in a bank deposit account would be worth around £6,000 today, all without accounting for inflation.

Information on Barclays share price in 1952 was retrieved by specialist magazine Investors Chronicle from its archives in the Guildhall Library in the heart of the City.

The bank is one of only a handful  of companies that were listed on the stock market in 1952 and are still there carrying out the same business today.  Others â€" including British American Tobacco, the Prudential, Tate Lyle, Rolls-Royce, Shell, Unilever and banknote printer De La Rue â€" have seen their shares increase.

Marks Spencer, which benefited in the 1950s from the end of the post war culture of ‘make do and mend’ also has a lower share price then than now. Its shares closed last week at 329p, but were 373.75p in 1952, or 74/9 in pre-decimal currency.

A Barclays spokesman said: ‘These share prices are not really comparable because we have had lots of changes to the number of shares in issue and the capital structure over that period. We are a much more profitable business now than then.’

He added: ‘A good chunk of the value that has gone missing recently  is due to the problems in the eurozone.’

Here's what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

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I feel it is a ridiculous amount of money to pay Diamond. There is no real link to performance. When performance is bad they just change the "bonus" scheme. You can't tell me that bankers won't work for less money. If so let them go. A lot of the blame is due to the pay consultants who pass round the infection !!!

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It is a pity that the banking bailout did not include putting the bankers in the Tower. Yes I know Barclays was not specifically bailed out but Diamond had bled the shareholders dry.

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The trouble is Barclays have delusions of grandeur, they still have n't worked out just how much they need their shareholders, not the other way round. There are thousands of better companies to invest in, most pay a better dividend, (which is n't difficult!!) Diamond should get the dividend up, and make this shower look attractive again to investors, at the moment the risks do not warrant the 2p divi !!

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If banks don't clean up their. Act I will be taking all my savings out and put it in a credit union .... They seem to be more human !!!!!

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I am afraid that Barclays performance under the present management and the one who retired a couple of years ago has been disasterous. They now look like a bunch of Cowboys whose behaviour after driving the herd from Texas to the railhead was extremely wild. it is time for diamond to take a long look at himself and get his head from where it now and then wake up and smell the air and get on with putting things right or else get out of the bank with no compensation payment.

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