John Varley rejects HSBC offer
Those in the know understand that John Varley, the outgoing chief executive of Barclays Bank, has rejected a move to become chairman of HSBC and succeed Stephen Green. This would have been a very controversial move, if the rumours are correct, because John Varley has intimate knowledge of the workings of Barclays Bank which would obviously have been of some use to HSBC.
However, despite the fact that John Varley would appear to have turned down any initial approaches from HSBC he will be a man who is in demand when he leaves his role at one of the UK's largest banking institutions in early 2011. He will be replaced by Bob Diamond who is seen by many in the political arena as the "unacceptable face of capitalism" - a name which was often directed towards Sir Fred Goodwin prior to him leaving Royal Bank of Scotland. However, at this moment in time it would appear that Bob Diamond is very much in the sights of UK politicians looking to weaken and potentially destabilise the UK banking arena.
Even though a number of prominent financial experts have left the field of UK finance in the aftermath of the credit crunch and the worldwide recession there is no doubt that the UK finance industry is still one of the strongest in the world. Despite various "smash and grab" attempts by the European Union to reduce the power of London on the worldwide financial stage this has had limited impact as yet.
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