Amanda Staveley
Headline:
It is not about the money
Synopsis:
OVER a cup of coffee at a banker's house in West London almost two weeks ago, an ex-international athlete and a former model thrashed out the rudiments of a multi-billion pound deal to bail-out one of Britain's biggest banks. The result was the spectacular investment in Barclays, announced last week, by the ruling families of Abu Dhabi and Qatar and the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, of £7.3 billion.
For Roger Jenkins, the homeowner who was also a top runner, the capital injection was the climax to years of nurturing key contacts among the world's super-rich, especially in the Middle East. It had seen him become by repute the City's highest-paid banker at 52, earning a claimed £75 million a year. He was known as the King of the Double Dip, a reference to ways he devised by which the very wealthy can get tax relief twice. This boost for Jenkins' bank, which sees it remain apart from the British government's rescue scheme to carry on operating as it pleases (and paying staff bonuses as it sees fit) and at the same time extending its reach into the cash-rich Middle East, was a personal triumph.
- Publish date:
- 5 November 2008
- Author:
- Chris Blackhurst
- Source:
- Evening Standard
- Media:
