WHEN BOB DIAMOND took over as head of global markets
at BZW in 1996 he was known as the senior fixed-income chap
from CSFB who had been forced out after a division-wide
dispute over the bonus pool. A year later he became CEO of
what was left of BZW, renamed Barclays Capital, after the
equities and corporate finance divisions were sold to CSFB.
He was now the man with the near impossible job: how to make
a decent business out of a debt markets division that seemed
to be great in loans and sterling bonds but not a lot else.
Headhunters claimed they had Diamond's staff queuing up in
packs looking to leave.
Five and a half years later, it seems that Diamond has achieved
the impossible. He's the investment bank CEO that his peers would
like to be. He has held revenues steady, kept costs down and has
posted a return on...
