Diamond to buy shares in Barclays

He plans to buy shares in its £6bn rights issue. “I’m buying my rights, I’m bullish on Barclays ... Barclays has become a better and stronger institution,” Mr Diamond said on CNBC television yesterday

”It’s got good strong new leadership in (chief executive) Antony Jenkins and (chairman) Sir David Walker.”

Mr Diamond was awarded millions of shares in his 16 years at Barclays and owned 13.2m at the end of 2011, which is the last publicly available data. If he took up all his rights, it would cost him £6.1m.

Barclays is offering shareholders to buy one new share at 185p for every four owned.

It is raising capital to meet tougher rules on leverage introduced by UK regulators.

Mr Diamond was forced out in July 2012 after his bank was fined for rigging Libor interest rates and was shown to have had a frosty relationship with UK regulators for some time.

After building up its investment bank over more than a decade, Mr Diamond became chief executive at the start of 2011.

The American was one of the world’s best paid bankers for many years, and the Sunday Times newspaper’s Rich List 2012 estimated he amassed about £105m during his career.

Mr Diamond told CNBC he could have implemented reforms around citizenship more quickly during his time in charge of Barclays, and been quicker to integrate operations and technology.