Barclays analyst caught in email gaffe: We’re going to steal website’s ideas

 
P24 Nick Hungerford
Tom Harper10 April 2013

Barclays has been accused of “inappropriate” behaviour after one of its analysts was caught threatening to “steal” ideas from an internet start-up company backed by the Government.

An employee at the banking giant was emailed by a friend who recommended Nutmeg, a new website that offers to manage portfolios for people with as little as £1,000 to invest.

The change analyst at Barclays Wealth and Investment Management replied: “Signed up a few weeks ago — cool tools on their site. We’re going to steal them.” But instead of sending it back to his friend, the analyst accidentally emailed his plan to the Nutmeg website, which was founded by technology entrepreneur Nick Hungerford.

The 32-year-old former stockbroker told the Evening Standard: “I’m surprised that Barclays appears to want to copy Nutmeg’s product. This feels somewhat inappropriate, but we will take it as a compliment.”

One of Nutmeg’s investors is Todd Ruppert, who recently retired as head of T Rowe Price’s Global Investment Services, an American fund with more than £400 billion of assets. He told the Evening Standard that existing wealth managers such as Barclays should be worried by the rise of Nutmeg.

He said: “The provision of wealth management services seems to be in constant turmoil and trust has been badly bruised, if not knocked out.

“Nutmeg is a disruptive force for good in the industry. UK retail investors are currently underserved and mis-served and consumer trust needs to be restored by services such as this. Existing wealth managers, stockbrokers and IFAs [independent financial advisers] should feel threatened.”

Mr Hungerford came up with the idea for Nutmeg in Silicon Valley in the US before being asked to site the fledgling company back in the UK by a government trade delegation. He added: “I thought it was my duty to build the company in England. The financial, operational and engineering talent in London is second to none.”

A Barclays spokesman declined to comment. However, a source at the bank said the email was “definitely misjudged” and the employee had been spoken to.

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