Barclays executive nets £9m in shares payout

Rich Ricci, a close ally of Barclays' president Bob Diamond, has sold shares in the high street bank worth almost £9m. A statement to the stock exchange showed that Ricci, a senior official at the investment banking arm Barclays Capital, sold 2.5m shares at a price of £3.58 each at the end of March. Although not on Barclays' board, Ricci's dealings have been disclosed because he is deemed to be a "person discharging managerial responsibility" after joining the executive committee in November 2009. It is difficult to ascertain how many shares he continues to hold as the bank is not required to provide such information. A previous disclosure to the stock market showed Ricci was among 10 directors to have received shares worth a combined £64m under a five-year performance-pay deal in mid-March. The 5.4m shares released to Ricci under the five-year scheme were worth around £18m – before he sold some to pay tax bills to leave him with 3.2m of those shares. Ricci, who helped negotiate the acquisition of the Wall Street operations of Lehman after its collapse in September 2008 , joined Barclays Capital in 1994, and also held senior roles at Barclays Global Investors, the asset management arm sold to BlackRock last year . He works closely with Diamond, who is credited with overseeing the sale of BGI last year and expanding the Barclays Capital operation. Diamond has faced criticism from Lord Mandelson over a reward package described by the business secretary as worth £63m. Mandelson, who said 12 years ago that he was relaxed about people becoming "filthy rich", described Diamond as the "unacceptable face" of banking. Barclays disputes the £63m figure as "total fiction" – although an analysis of Diamond's pay and share schemes shows he could be rewarded with £60m .