After reports of Antony Jenkins leaving Barclays last week, it has also been announced that deputy chairman, Sir Mike Rake, will be leaving to become the new chairman of payments processing firm Worldpay, according to the BBC.
BBC business editor Kamal Ahmed hailed Rake for being a highly respected figure in the business world and commended him on his work since being at the bank for the past seven years. Sir Mike said that he was looking forward to being part of Worldpay’s journey. “The payments industry has never been more exciting and Worldpay is at the forefront of this innovation,” Rake said. He will take over from John Allan in September who recently became the chairman of Tesco, as well as being a chair for housebuilder Barratt Developments.
The Financial Times reports that he was not a big supporter of Jenkins because of the cuts he authorised and preferred the American investment banker Bob Diamond. Alongside this, Rake was the main orchestrator behind the ousting of the former Barclays CEO as he rallied other non-executives to move against him so that Rake could appoint John McFarlane as an interim replacement.
“Sir Michael intends to continue in these positions, and be a member of the board, until at least the end of 2015. If and when he stands down from the Barclays board, a new senior independent director will of course have been appointed,” Barclays said according to the FT.
Rake is also chairman of BT, director of McGraw Hill Financial, owner of the Standard & Poor’s rating agency and chairman of Majid Al Futtaim, the retail and leisure group. The European Commission’s CRD4 only allows four non-executive directorships for each bank board member and special approval is required from the financial regulator to be able to hold five, as said in the FT.
Worldpay, provider of secure payments services was sold by Royal Bank of Scotland to private equity groups Advent International and Bain Capital and is looking to be one of the UK’s biggest IPOs this year, with an estimated public valuation of £6 billion.
