Cazenove, the top London stockbroker, risked civil war among its rainmakers today when it chose the former finance director of Barclays as its new boss.

The firm - owned by US investment banking giant JP Morgan - unveiled Naguib Kheraj as chief executive. This follows the departure of Robert Pickering earlier this year.

It was immediately seen by City insiders as snub to an ambitious clutch of the firm's own senior executives and deal-doers.

Among those seen as having a strong chance of winning the job were ace rainmaker Ian Hannam, corporate financier Ed Byers and head of equities Alan Carruthers. But Cazenove chairman David Mayhew did little to soothe their egos.

"We looked at a suite of skills of both internal and external candidates," he said. "Naguib has had three or four jobs at Barclays [at group level and in investment banking, private equity and wealth management] which are very transportable.

"That gives us a broader set of skills than is generally the case. Naguib does not come from the same background [as the internal candidates] but his skills are very complementary."

Quizzed on whether the likes of Hannam - believed to have clashed with JPMorgan bosses on Wall Street - may quit, Mayhew said existing executives will "grow to work with the new leader", adding that "we are optimistic they will stay with us".

Kheraj left the Barclays board 18 months ago but stayed on to work for the bank on both its abortive bid for ABN Amro and on helping it avoid embarrassing RBS and HBOS-style rights issues by attracting China Development Bank and Temasek of Singapore as new investors.