By Lawrence White and Iain Withers
LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Britain's financial regulators
are probing historical links between Barclays Chief
Executive Jes Staley and the U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein, who
killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges,
the bank said on Thursday.
Barclays said its board had looked into media reports on
Staley's relationship with Epstein, and probed Staley's
characterisation of that relationship.
The Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential
Regulation Authority are investigating.
The bank said its board believes Staley has been
sufficiently transparent about his ties to Epstein, whom Staley
said he had not seen since taking over as Barclays CEO in 2015.
The New York Times last year said that Epstein had referred
"dozens" of wealthy clients to Staley when the CEO ran
JPMorgan's private banking business.
It also reported that Staley visited Epstein in prison when
he was serving a sentence between 2008-09 for soliciting
prostitution.
Barclays has previously said that Staley never engaged or
paid fees to Epstein to advise him or provide professional
services.
Staley received a bumper pay package of 5.9 million pounds
($7.64 million) in 2019, up from 3.36 million a year earlier.
The sum was boosted by the vesting of a long-term incentive plan
worth 1.48 million pounds.
His bonus also rose to 1.65 million pounds, reflecting the
bank's strong annual performance.
Both Staley and Finance Director Tushar Morzaria took cuts
to their pension allowances in 2019, and will now receive fixed
cash contributions equating to 10% of salary in line with the
broader workforce.
Lower-paid employees will see their employer pension
contributions rise to 12%.
The bank meanwhile reported a better-than-expected profit
before tax of 6.2 billion pounds for 2019, as its investment
bank reported bumper returns from fixed-income trading.
Its profit was 9% higher than in 2018 and above the 5.7
billion pounds average of analysts' forecasts compiled by the
bank.
The British lender also reiterated its ambition of achieving
a 10% return on equity this year, although it repeated a warning
from October that the worsening economic outlook might make
reaching that target difficulty.
Staley has said that Barclays' mix of investment and retail
banking businesses should partly insulate it from economic and
market fluctuations.
Barclays paid a dividend of 9 pence for the year, compared
with 6.5 pence for 2018, as its core capital ratio came in at a
better-than-expected 13.8%.
($1 = 0.7723 pounds)
(Editing by Sinead Cruise and Jan Harvey)