Repentant Barclays beats expectations

A contrite Marcus Agius, Chairman of under-fire bank Barclays, apologised for the company's involvement in the LIBOR fixing scandal as he unveiled half-year profits ahead of market expectations.

Adjusted profit before tax in the first half of 2012 rose 13% to £4,227m from £3,725m in the first half of 2011, versus market expectations of £3,958m. Statutory profit before tax crashed 71% to £759m from £2,644m the year before, however, as the company wrote down the value of its own credit by £2,945m.

Credit impairment charges were flat at £1,832m, reflecting improvements across many businesses, but offset principally by increased levels of impairments at the Investment Bank division, where there was a net release of £111m in 2011.

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Adjusted net operating income edged up to £13,643m from £13,471m the year before.

During the first six months of 2012, sovereign exposures to Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Cyprus reduced 22% to £5.6bn. In order to mitigate re-denomination risk, the group continues to reduce local funding mismatches in Spain and Portugal

The Core Tier 1 ratio - a measure of balance sheet strength - ebbed a little to 10.9% from 11.0% at the end of 2011. Risk weighted assets were stable at £390bn.

Basic earnings per share (EPS) improved to 21.8p from 19.6p the year before. The market had pencilled in a figure of 19.2p for EPS. As expected, the interim dividend has been held at 2.0p.

Agius, who is due to give up his role as Chairman as soon as he finds a Chief Executive Officer for the company, said: ""We continue to deliver a good financial performance in the context of the current macroeconomic environment. Our competitive position continues to grow and our financial strength is serving us well in this period of uncertainty and volatility."

Alluding to the company's involvement in the rate-fixing scandal which prompted him to resign, Agius added: "These remain challenging times for Barclays, as well as the industry, and we are sorry for what has happened because of recent events. However our leadership continues to focus on the delivery of our financial performance targets and on building a platform for sustainable long term growth. Our customers and clients are at the heart of what we do. I am confident we can and will repair the reputational damage done to our business in their eyes and those of all our stakeholders."

JH