For the better part of a year, Barclays Plc’s boss C.S. Venkatakrishnan has been reviewing his firm’s strategy. It turns out, pruning around the edges was enough.

In a four-and-a-half-hour investor call on Tuesday, the bank’s chief set out why he was resisting pressure from some shareholders to make a major strategic change, such as the often-floated idea of spinning out the investment bank.