“We believe strongly that the best strategy is to concentrate our efforts and investment on those businesses where we have the greatest competitive advantage and which fit most closely with and capitalise on the other activities of the Barclays Group."

These words could easily have come from the UK group's chief executive Antony Jenkins as he mapped out a wide-ranging restructuring of the group and its investment bank this morning. But they didn't. In fact they came from one of his predecessors during an even more radical revamp nearly two decades ago.