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Barclays PLC on Thursday raised its outlook and announced a new share buyback, as it reported second-quarter top line growth. The London-based lender said total income in the second-quarter rose 0.6% to £6.32 billion from £6.29 billion a year prior. Pretax profit, however, fell 1.3% to £1.94 billion from £1.96 billion. Basic earnings per share fell slightly to 8.3 pence from 8.6p. Return on tangible equity dipped to 9.9% from 11.4%. The common equity tier 1 ratio eased to 13.6% from 13.8%. Net interest margin was flat at 3.22%. The biggest revenue growth came in the Barclays Investment Bank. Revenue there surged 10% to £3.02 billion. In the US Consumer Bank, revenue rose 6.8%, and it climbed 7.0% in the Private Bank & Wealth Management arm. However, revenue fell 3.8% in Barclays UK. ‘We are making good progress on our three-year plan, with a return on tangible equity of 11.1% in the first half of 2024, which puts us on track for our target of greater than 10% RoTE in 2024,’ said Chief Executive CS Venkatakrishnan. Barclays delivered £200 million of gross cost efficiency savings in the quarter, and said it remains on track to deliver around £1 billion of gross cost efficiency savings in 2024. The lender lifted its interim dividend by 7.4% to 2.9p per share from 2.7p. It announced a new share buyback of £750 million, the same size as a year ago. Looking ahead, it upped its outlook. It predicts 2024 net interest income, excluding the investment bank and head office, of £11.0 billion. The outlook was increased from £10.7 billion. Net interest income in the second-quarter amounted to £3.06 billion, a decline of 6.5% from £3.27 billion a year prior. The increase is driven by the higher than expected interest rate environment and improving deposit dynamics and excludes the Tesco Bank acquisition, which is expected to complete at the beginning of November 2024, Barclays said. Shares in Barclays fell 0.5% to 232.65p in London on Thursday. The wider FTSE 100 was down 0.3%. Copyright 2024 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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