30th Oct 2014 07:31
LONDON (Alliance News) - Barclays PLC Thursday said it has set aside GBP500 million in light of regulators' investigations into alleged foreign exchange manipulation, as the British lender reported a rise in third-quarter pretax profit.
In a statement, Barclays said it made a GBP1.22 billion pretax profit in the third quarter of 2014, compared with GBP1.17 billion in the corresponding quarter last year. On an adjusted basis, which strips out items such as the foreign exchange provision, own credit, and gains and losses on acquisitions and disposals, Barclays' third-quarter pretax profit increased to GBP1.59 billion from GBP1.39 billion.
According to Barclays, consensus estimates of 16 analysts had forecast a GBP1.21 billion adjusted pretax profit for the third quarter.
Barclays reported a GBP3.72 billion pretax profit in the first nine months of the year, compared with GBP2.85 billion in the corresponding period last year. On an adjusted basis, Barclays said pretax profit in the first nine months increased to GBP4.94 billion from GBP4.72 billion.
"Our core businesses - the future of Barclays - have delivered a return on equity of 10.5%, driven by our powerhouse personal and corporate banking business and continued strong growth in Barclaycard," Chief Executive Antony Jenkins said in a statement.
"The strength of our Africa banking franchise is clearly visible despite currency headwinds. The investment bank's performance in the quarter was disappointing, but we have been able to offset that within the rebalanced group and still deliver good core performance. We have strengthened capital and leverage, net tangible asset value per share is up, and we continue to drive costs lower. Equity is being released from our non-core as risk-weighted assets come down, and we saw good progress in business disposals such as the sale of the Spanish business. In aggregate, this is a good performance from the group, our strategy is working, and we expect to see continued progress as we go forward," Jenkins added.
Barclays will pay a third interim dividend of 1.0 pence.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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