Shares were up after the bank reported a hike in pre-tax profit for 2017
Shares in Barclays were up 4.6 per cent in morning trading after it announced a 10 per cent hike in pre-tax profit for 2017 and said it would restore its full dividend in 2018.
However, the British bank also recorded an after-tax loss of £1.9bn for last year, following tax charges related to Donald Trump’s tax reforms and further litigation provisions. According to the BBC, the collapse of Carillion has cost Barclays around £127m.
Barclays Chief Executive Jes Staley hailed 2017 as a “year of considerable strategic progress for Barclays”.
“The sell down of our shareholding in Barclays Africa, closure of our non-core unit, the establishment of our service company, and the creation of our UK ringfenced bank, mean that, in terms of size and structure, we are now the diversified transatlantic consumer and wholesale bank we set out in our strategy in March 2016.”
“We have a portfolio of profitable businesses, producing significant earnings, and have plans and investments in place to grow those earnings over time. We have already started to see some of the benefits of our work in 2017.
“While we still have a number of legacy conduct issues to address, I am confident in the capacity of this business to generate excess capital going forward, and it remains our intention over time to return a greater proportion of that excess capital to shareholders through dividends, and other means of capital distribution, including share buybacks,” Stanley added.
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