Oct 24, 2018

Opening Quote: Barclays banks on investment bankers

If you are run by an investment banker, are hiring lots more investment bankers, basing your strategy on refocusing your investment bank, and disagreeing with an activist investor who reckons you should do less investment banking, you need to be good at . Thankfully, in the first half of 2018, pre-tax profit in Barclays' corporate and investment bank jumped by 17 per cent to £2bn. Analysts at Morgan Stanley had been forecasting a strong third quarter, too, helped by an increase of around 25 per cent in equities revenues compared with last year. As a result, corporate and investment bank revenue was flat at £7.61bn year-to-date as an overall 12 per cent increase in markets income to £3.95bn was offset by a 7 per cent decrease in banking income to £3.76bn. So, the question this morning is: will this be enough to satisfy Barclays' investment bank fanatics - and indeed critics, such as activist Edward Bramson? Dividend of 6.5p per share for 2018; interim dividend of 2.5p per share paid in Q318. Bottom line: Third quarter pre-tax profit was £1.46bn. For the nine months to end September, Barclays group profit before tax fell to £3.12bn from £3.45bn when including litigation and conduct charges of £2.1bn - mainly from a settlement with the US Department of Justice over residential mortgage-backed securities. UBS expected Barclays to report third quarter adjusted pre-tax profit of £1.09bn, compared with £1.19bn a year ago, and total income was forecast to fall to £5.02bn from £5.17bn. What was said: Chief executive Jes Staley said: "During the third quarter our Corporate and Investment bank outperformed peers again in Markets, with a 19 per cent increase in income, and, in Banking, while we saw a dip in income, we have seen strong completion activity in October. Barclays was adviser on three of the largest M&A transactions executed in the period."

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