British bank Barclays beat expectations with a 44 per cent rise in half-year profit as bad debts dropped sharply and it made a big accounting gain, offsetting a second-quarter slowdown at its investment bank.
Barclays said pretax profit in the six months to the end of June was £3.95 billion, above an average forecast of £3.4 billion from six analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. It included an £851 million gain on the value of its own credit.
Bad debts fell by 32 per cent to £3.08 billion, despite a jump in losses on corporate loans in Spain.
Earnings at Barclays Capital, the investment bank arm headed by Bob Diamond, more than trebled from a year ago to 3.4 billion pounds. Excluding credit moves BarCap's profit rose 31 per cent to £2.55 billion.
Top-line income in the second quarter was £3.28 billion, down 15 per cent from the previous quarter.
Reuters