[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

Barclays' new CEO Antony Jenkins may look forward to less scandal, less executive departures – and less pay.  Heading into its Diamond-less era, the British bank may pay the new executive 31% less than Robert Diamond Jr., who in 2010 was referred by a U.K. cabinet member as the "unacceptable face of banking."

The Shadow of Diamond. Mr. Diamond, the U.S.-born investment banker who quit after the bank agreed to pay $453 million to settle charges that it manipulated Libor,  received as much as £12.5 million per year in pay and other benefits, including.  In 2011, Mr. Diamond was paid

• £1.35 million in salary
• as much as £ 2.7 million in bonus
• as much as £2.25 million in long-term incentives
• a £5.75 million payment to cover his personal tax bill
• £474,000 in benefits

After he became a Barclays board member in 2005, Mr. Diamond, who became CEO in 2011, earned at least £120 million in pay and bonuses, or about £17 million per year, according to Manifest Information Services Ltd.

Bringing in the New Blood. Essentially, Mr. Jenkins, a 51-year-old Briton and veteran of Barclays’s consumer division, is being paid to do a better job.  Nevertheless, Mr. Jenkins, the current head of Barclays retail and business banking unit, will earn significantly less, up to £8.6 million ($13.6 million), according to a statement from Britain’s second-largest lender today, including:

• a salary of £1.1 million
• as much as £2.75 million in bonus
• some £363,000 as an alternative to a pension payment
• eligibility to earn as much as £4.4 million per year in long-term bonuses from next year

"Bob was overpaid, and that’s been the whole issue.  This guy could still potentially get a lot of money. The financial-services industry does seem to carry very high bonuses compared with other industries." -- Gary Greenwood, a Liverpool, England-based analyst at Shore Capital Group Ltd.

The change in pay has been coming.  Some 21% of Barclays shareholders opposed the re-election of Alison Carnwath, who headed the bank’s compensation committee and approved Diamond’s pay package, as a non-executive director in April.  She fell under criticism from investors the lender was enriching employees while failing to hit its own profitability targets.  In July, she resigned from the firm.

For further details, go to [Bloomberg, 8/30/12].