Roger Jenkins (banker)
Encyclopedia
Roger Allan Jenkins joined BTG Pactual, Brazil's largest independent investment bank and asset manager, in early 2011. He is on the Management committee and on the Investment committee . He was formerly with Barclays Capital
, where he was Chief Executive of Barclays Capital's Private Equity, Principal Investments and Structured Capital Markets, and from April 2008 was Executive Chairman of Investment Banking and Investment Management for the Middle East.
Jenkins's expertise was in tax planning. Estimates suggested that in 2005 Jenkins made somewhere between £40 million and £75 million, making him reputedly the highest paid banker in the City
. That year the board of directors at Barclays, which did not include Jenkins, earned between them £12.3 million in salaries, benefits and bonuses.
In 2008 Jenkins was an influential figure in the investment of £7.3 billion in Barclays by the ruling families of Abu Dhabi
and Qatar
, and by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund
.
He divides his time between Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, and the Middle East.
and studied economics at Heriot-Watt University
. In his youth he was an accomplished sprinter, representing Scotland and Great Britain from 1973 to 1978. He won a silver medal at the World Student Games in Rome in 1975 at 400m. His brother David Jenkins (athlete)
won a silver medal for Great Britain in the 4 x 400 metres relay
at the 1972 Olympics
.
and joined Barclays as a graduate trainee in 1978. From 1982 to 1984 he was head of private placements at Barclays's investment banking
division, Barclays de Zoete Wedd (BZW), in New York
, leaving in 1987 to work for Kleinwort Benson
, where he stayed for seven years. He rejoined Barclays in 1994 to set up a group advising companies on risk management and leasing.
In 2009 The Guardian
newspaper reported tales of a macho culture inside the Structured Capital Markets division, where, one source claimed, "the deals are so big you never say billion or million, you just say 16 bucks or 16 quid which meant billion". The same source suggested that tax avoidance "was so big it became the engine of growth for the whole of the investment banking arm". Some calculations had claimed that in 2002 Jenkins and his team generated revenues amounting to more than 100 per cent of Barclays Capital's profits, figures Barclays said were "gross exaggerations", adding that Jenkins was in charge of four businesses –tax-efficient financing being only one– and that those businesses generated less than 20 per cent of the bank's revenues.
, Augustus Funding LLC, which was incorporated in Delaware
but also had a London address and British directors. Although the company had no employees, products or customers, in 2004 it registered pretax profits of $317 million from assets such as Danish mortgage securities and U.S. Treasuries, on which it paid UK taxes of $94 million. According to the Wall Street Journal, thanks to "elaborate structure and cash flows" both Barclays and Wachovia were able to take credit for a full payment of the tax, meaning the $94 million could be claimed twice. The report suggested that Augustus Funding was one of at least nine structures involving US banks set up by Jenkins and his team. Barclays called the account of the transactions "materially inaccurate", while a statement from Wachovia said that they had "complied with all applicable laws and regulations".
, whom he had met in the gym at the Barbican
, where Jenkins was living after the end of his marriage to his first wife, a banker at Barclays. Dijana is a Bosnian
Muslim who escaped to London from Sarajevo
during the country's civil war
. In 2011 it was announced that the Jenkins marriage had come to "a natural end" in 2009.
of Abu Dhabi
, who was advised on his investment by the financier and dealmaker Amanda Staveley
. Speculation suggested that the personal reward for Jenkins was perhaps upwards of £30 million. "With contacts like that," said one Barclays employee, "you just name your price."
It was also reported that Jenkins paid a key role in the sale of Barclays's iShares
business as part of the acquisition of their asset management operation, Barclays Global Investors, by the US firm BlackRock
for $13.5 billion in June 2009.
In February 2010 Jenkins launched an advisory firm in Dublin, Elkstone Capital, looking at opportunities created by the Irish financial crisis
. “If you are sitting in Dublin today, there are tremendous opportunities, from capital raising to restructuring to acquisitions,” he said.
Barclays Capital
Barclays Capital is a global British investment bank. It is the investment banking division of Barclays plc which has a balance sheet of over £1.2 trillion . Barclays Capital provides financing and risk management services to large companies, institutions and government clients. It is a primary...
, where he was Chief Executive of Barclays Capital's Private Equity, Principal Investments and Structured Capital Markets, and from April 2008 was Executive Chairman of Investment Banking and Investment Management for the Middle East.
Jenkins's expertise was in tax planning. Estimates suggested that in 2005 Jenkins made somewhere between £40 million and £75 million, making him reputedly the highest paid banker in the City
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
. That year the board of directors at Barclays, which did not include Jenkins, earned between them £12.3 million in salaries, benefits and bonuses.
In 2008 Jenkins was an influential figure in the investment of £7.3 billion in Barclays by the ruling families of Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...
and Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
, and by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund
Sovereign wealth fund
A sovereign wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund composed of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, property, precious metals or other financial instruments. Sovereign wealth funds invest globally. Some of them have grabbed attention making bad investments in several Wall Street financial...
.
He divides his time between Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, and the Middle East.
Background, education and sport
Roger Jenkins was born in England, the son of an oil refinery manager. He attended Edinburgh AcademyEdinburgh Academy
The Edinburgh Academy is an independent school which was opened in 1824. The original building, in Henderson Row on the northern fringe of the New Town of Edinburgh, Scotland, is now part of the Senior School...
and studied economics at Heriot-Watt University
Heriot-Watt University
Heriot-Watt University is a university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The name commemorates George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, the great 18th century inventor and engineer....
. In his youth he was an accomplished sprinter, representing Scotland and Great Britain from 1973 to 1978. He won a silver medal at the World Student Games in Rome in 1975 at 400m. His brother David Jenkins (athlete)
David Jenkins (athlete)
David Wilkinson Jenkins , is an American figure skater. He won the men's gold medal for figure skating during the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley...
won a silver medal for Great Britain in the 4 x 400 metres relay
4 x 400 metres relay
The 4 x 400 meters relay or long relay is an athletics track event in which teams comprise four runners who each complete 400 meters or one lap. It is traditionally the final event of a track meet. At top class events, the first 500 meters is run in lanes...
at the 1972 Olympics
1972 Summer Olympics
The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 11, 1972....
.
Early career
Jenkins worked briefly at BPBP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
and joined Barclays as a graduate trainee in 1978. From 1982 to 1984 he was head of private placements at Barclays's investment banking
Investment banking
An investment bank is a financial institution that assists individuals, corporations and governments in raising capital by underwriting and/or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of securities...
division, Barclays de Zoete Wedd (BZW), in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, leaving in 1987 to work for Kleinwort Benson
Kleinwort Benson
Kleinwort Benson is a leading Private Bank that offers a wide range of financial services to private and corporate clients from offices throughout the United Kingdom and Channel Islands. The bank has its headquarters on St George Street in Mayfair, and is supported by seven UK regional and two...
, where he stayed for seven years. He rejoined Barclays in 1994 to set up a group advising companies on risk management and leasing.
Structured Capital Markets
Jenkins developed an expertise in tax arbitrage, analysing the tax regimes of various countries so that rich individuals and major companies could exploit differences in those taxation rules. His group became Barclays Capital Structured Capital Markets. It recruited beyond banking and included Iain Abrahams, a former lawyer at Slaughter & May. One former colleague suggested that it was Abrahams who was "the brains behind the division", saying of Jenkins: "I wouldn't say he is brilliantly bright, but he is very good at internal politics." Another observer agreed that Jenkins is "a far better operator than he is a technocrat."In 2009 The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper reported tales of a macho culture inside the Structured Capital Markets division, where, one source claimed, "the deals are so big you never say billion or million, you just say 16 bucks or 16 quid which meant billion". The same source suggested that tax avoidance "was so big it became the engine of growth for the whole of the investment banking arm". Some calculations had claimed that in 2002 Jenkins and his team generated revenues amounting to more than 100 per cent of Barclays Capital's profits, figures Barclays said were "gross exaggerations", adding that Jenkins was in charge of four businesses –tax-efficient financing being only one– and that those businesses generated less than 20 per cent of the bank's revenues.
Tax arbitrage
A 2006 investigation by the Wall Street Journal claimed that in 2003 Jenkins and his team had set up a company co-owned by Barclays and the US bank WachoviaWachovia
Wachovia was a diversified financial services company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before its acquisition by Wells Fargo in 2008, Wachovia was the fourth-largest bank holding company in the United States based on total assets...
, Augustus Funding LLC, which was incorporated in Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
but also had a London address and British directors. Although the company had no employees, products or customers, in 2004 it registered pretax profits of $317 million from assets such as Danish mortgage securities and U.S. Treasuries, on which it paid UK taxes of $94 million. According to the Wall Street Journal, thanks to "elaborate structure and cash flows" both Barclays and Wachovia were able to take credit for a full payment of the tax, meaning the $94 million could be claimed twice. The report suggested that Augustus Funding was one of at least nine structures involving US banks set up by Jenkins and his team. Barclays called the account of the transactions "materially inaccurate", while a statement from Wachovia said that they had "complied with all applicable laws and regulations".
Marriage
In 1999 Jenkins married Sanela Dijana ĆatićSanela Diana Jenkins
Sanela Diana Jenkins is a Bosnian entrepreneur and philanthropist. She currently resides in California...
, whom he had met in the gym at the Barbican
Barbican Estate
The Barbican Estate is a residential estate built during the 1960s and the 1970s in the City of London, in an area once devastated by World War II bombings and today densely populated by financial institutions...
, where Jenkins was living after the end of his marriage to his first wife, a banker at Barclays. Dijana is a Bosnian
Bosnians
Bosnians are people who reside in, or come from, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the modern state definition a Bosnian can be anyone who holds citizenship of the state. This includes, but is not limited to, members of the constituent ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs and...
Muslim who escaped to London from Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
during the country's civil war
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
. In 2011 it was announced that the Jenkins marriage had come to "a natural end" in 2009.
Barclays deals
In April 2008 Barclays appointed Jenkins Executive Chairman of Investment Banking and Investment Management for the Middle East. In November his connections in the region were influential in securing £7.3 billion of investment in Barclays as the bank sought private funding to recapitalise following the financial crisis of that year. Jenkins delivered Quatari involvement in the deal worth £4.5 billion, with Qatar Holdings controlling 13 per cent of the bank and Challenger, an investment vehicle for Sheik Hamad, owning 3 per cent. A further 14 per cent of Barclays was taken up by Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al NahyanMansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan
HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan is a United Arab Emirati politician and member of ruling family of Abu Dhabi . He is the half brother of the current President of UAE, Emir of Abu Dhabi, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan...
of Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...
, who was advised on his investment by the financier and dealmaker Amanda Staveley
Amanda Staveley
Amanda Staveley is a British businesswoman notable chiefly for her connections with Middle Eastern investors. In 2008 Staveley played a prominent role in the investment of £7.3 billion in Barclays by the ruling families of Abu Dhabi and Qatar, and by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund...
. Speculation suggested that the personal reward for Jenkins was perhaps upwards of £30 million. "With contacts like that," said one Barclays employee, "you just name your price."
It was also reported that Jenkins paid a key role in the sale of Barclays's iShares
IShares
iShares are a family of exchange-traded funds managed by BlackRock. The first iShares were known as WEBS but were since rebranded.Each iShares fund tracks a bond or stock market index...
business as part of the acquisition of their asset management operation, Barclays Global Investors, by the US firm BlackRock
BlackRock
BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment management corporation and the world's largest asset manager. BlackRock is headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States and is the leading provider of investment, advisory, and risk management solutions...
for $13.5 billion in June 2009.
Departure from Barclays
In July 2009 it was reported that Jenkins was to leave Barclays. It was suggested that he would retain a consultancy role with the bank while establishing his own advisory business based on his contacts in the Persian Gulf. He left the bank in August that year.In February 2010 Jenkins launched an advisory firm in Dublin, Elkstone Capital, looking at opportunities created by the Irish financial crisis
2008–2011 Irish financial crisis
The 2008–2011 Irish financial crisis, which had stemmed from the financial crisis of 2008, is a major political and economic crisis in Ireland that is partly responsible for the country falling into recession for the first time since the 1980s...
. “If you are sitting in Dublin today, there are tremendous opportunities, from capital raising to restructuring to acquisitions,” he said.