Hot Features
Premium
Level up your trading with our powerful tools and real-time insights all in one place.
Barclays have announced a 35% fall in first quarter profits. Citing the cost of transforming the bank to become a “Go-To” bank profits fell by £609m to £1.8bn.
An increase in European losses was a further contributing factor to the first quarter losses.
In a statement the bank’s chief executive, Antony Jenkins, said “We set out in our Strategic Review in February our path to become the “Go-To” bank for all our stakeholders. While there remains much to do to build a stronger and more resilient Barclays, we are completely focused on executing our Transform programme and are making good early progress”.
Addressing challenges facing Barclays Mr Jenkins argued that “Strategic cost management is a critical factor in delivering our commitments. We have recognised around £500m of ‘costs to achieve Transform’ in the first quarter, reflecting our immediate priorities to reduce our European retail branch network in order to focus on the mass-affluent segment and on re-positioning our equities and investment banking operations in Asia and Europe.
“As indicated in the Strategic Review, we expect to recognise a further £500m of costs to achieve Transform in 2013” said Mr Jenkins.
Discussing the Barclays’ first quarter results the chief executive posited that “adjusted profit before tax was £1.8bn including the costs to achieve, driven by good momentum across the businesses, particularly in the Investment Bank, Barclaycard and Wealth and Investment Management.
“In our goal to become the ‘Go-To’ bank we have not chosen an easy path for Barclays, but we have chosen the right one”.
