Barclays' outsider tries to settle in

Last year, when a lot of investment houses were struggling, BGI's profits were up 41%. It made £110 million. But the group's investment bank, Barclays Capital, made £593 million and pre-tax profits of the group as a whole were £3.2 billion.

In the previous year BGI made £71 million out of group profits of £4.1 billion - an even smaller slice of the pie. Barclays initiated a review of the business and considered selling it off. All parties now say that those issues are in the past and both Barclays and BGI are committed to each other, as exemplified by the appointment last August of Bob Diamond, head of Barclays Capital, as chairman of BGI.

Co-chief executives of BGI Andrew Skirton and Blake Grossman are keen to draw a veil over the ownership question and  concentrate on how to improve results even further. "Within an industry context, we've had absolutely remarkable performance last year," says Skirton.