Barclays set to leave UK if it’s broken-up August 5, 2010 BARCLAYS mounted a staunch defence of “big banking” yesterday as its first-half performance failed to impress analysts, who described the hefty profit boost as “low quality”. Chief executive John Varley used his results speech to warn the government against breaking up large institutions into separate investment and retail banks. Varley argued FTSE 100 companies needed [...]
BarCap makes lion’s share of profit despite revenue drop August 5, 2010 PROFIT at Barclays Capital made up 87 per cent of the banking group’s overall earnings, though much of its £3.4bn profit was due to unexpected one-off items and credit changes. While pre-tax profit for the half had almost trebled compared to the first half of 2009, this includes a £851m gain on its own credit. [...]
Barclays August 5, 2010 WHAT a let-down. Barclays’ first-half numbers were like a huge picnic hamper that turns out to hold a couple of stale scotch eggs. Investors quickly saw through the headline pre-tax profit of £3.9bn, which was 13 per cent ahead of consensus. The number was flattered by a strong decline in writedowns to £3bn, a large [...]
BoE holds both rates and QE August 5, 2010 MONETARY policy remained frozen yesterday at ultra-loose levels as the Bank of England chose to keep interest rates at their current historic low of 0.5 per cent and maintained its target to boost the money supply at £200bn. Despite strong economic growth in the second quarter and inflation well above the two per cent target, [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS August 5, 2010 FTSE Group The global index provider has appointed Sudir Raju as managing director for its custom index business. Raju has worked for Dow Jones and Stoxx Indexes since 2004, latterly as leader of the Stoxx custom index business. He has a strong technical background with experience extending across index design, production, reviews and operations, as [...]
FTSE ends lower as Barclays leads banking sector retreat August 5, 2010 BRITAIN’S top shares closed down yesterday, with Barclays leading banking shares lower after it posted first-half numbers and downbeat US weekly jobless claims data later in the day only adding to the downward pressure. The FTSE 100 closed down 20.38 points, or 0.4 per cent, at 5,365.78, having fallen back from a session high of [...]
Barclays profit up 44pc August 5, 2010 BARCLAYS has reported A pre-tax profit of £3.95bn for the first half of 2010. The lion share of the profit came from the bank’s investment banking arm, Barclays Capital, which made £3.4bn. Barclays also said it lent £18bn to UK households and businesses over the six month period. Barclays chief executive John Varley said of [...]
Barclays to defend big banking August 4, 2010 Barclays chief executive John Varley is expected to use today’s first-half results to reiterate his defence of large, universal banks in the face of political pressure to split investment banks from deposit-holders. In February, Varley told a meeting of MPs that separating banks “will not lead to a safer system”.
Santander scoops 318 RBS branches after £4.5bn boost August 4, 2010 SPANISH giant Santander fired a warning shot across the bows of UK lenders yesterday, agreeing to buy 318 branches from Royal Bank of Scotland and preparing to reshuffle its global operations. Santander will become the fourth-largest bank on the high street after it takes over the outlets from RBS for £1.7bn. The deal, due to [...]
…but UK services growth continues to slow down August 4, 2010 GROWTH in Britain’s services sector slowed sharply last month, confirming analysts’ forecasts that economic activity will have cooled during the third quarter of the year. The leading Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 53.1 from 54.4 in June, a slightly greater drop than economists had expected and the fourth fall in five months. The [...]