Barclays yesterday reported a 10 per cent year-on-year increase in underlying profit for the first quarter of 2011. Its shares responded by falling 4 per cent to 288.65p by the close in London. It also said it was buying back a troublesome £6 billion ($9.9 billion) portfolio of assets, codenamed Protium, just a year and a half after it sold it to a fund dominated by former employees in an elaborate accounting manoeuvre designed to make its profits less volatile.

Credit Suisse’s efforts to boost its market share in investment banking paid off in the first quarter as the division’s solid revenues helped ease broader concerns about the group’s post-crisis strategy.Across the group, net profits of SFr1.14 billion were down 45 per cent year on year, dragged down by the strength of the Swiss franc and an expected SFr617 million pretax charge from accounting changes to the value of its own debt.

BP expects to resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the second half of the year, just months after the first anniversary of last April’s spill.

The UK group confirmed its intention as it revealed that first-quarter profits had been hit by lower production despite oil prices of more than $100 a barrel.

BP’s replacement cost net profit, which strips out the value of oil and gas inventory, was $5.48 billion in the quarter, down 2 per cent on the same period last year. BP also took an additional $400 million charge for the accident, bringing the total bill to $41.3 billion.

Volkswagen reported its highest quarterly sales figures, selling two million vehicles in the three months to the end of March, continuing a strong performance which saw the German carmaker make record profits last year.

Europe’s largest carmaker by sales reported revenue up more than 30 per cent to €37.5 billion compared with the same quarter in 2010. Net earnings for the three months to the end of March rose from €473 million to €1.7 billion, while operating profit more than tripled from €848 million to €2.9 billion.

The carmaker said deliveries in the period rose 14 per cent to just under two million units.

GlaxoSmithKline, the UK’s biggest drugmaker, reported a 14 per cent increase in first- quarter profit, helped by a gain from the sale of its stake in Quest Diagnostics Inc. Net income rose to £1.53 billion from £1.34 billion a year earlier. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011/Bloomberg)