Barclays PLC plans to return up to £500 million to shareholders through a buyback after quarterly pretax profit rose 12%, while results showed sharply different trends across its trading businesses.
The British bank posted pretax profit of £2.322 billion for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with £2.077 billion a year earlier. Group income grew 3% to £7.365 billion from £7.167 billion. Operating expenses increased 1% to £4.560 billion, and the cost-to-income ratio improved to 62% from 63%. Barclays said business growth, inflation and investment spending pushed costs higher, with about £200 million in efficiency savings partly offsetting the increase.
Credit impairment charges fell 20% to £503 million from £632 million. Barclays attributed the decline to more normalized charges in its Investment Bank and US Consumer Bank.
Investment Bank income rose 1% to £3.129 billion. Equities income reached £1.010 billion, up 47%, while income from fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) fell 19% to £1.012 billion. Barclays attributed the equities gain to earlier investment in Prime Financing and Equity Derivatives, and described FICC conditions as difficult.
Barclays Group Chief Executive C. S. Venkatakrishnan said, “The Investment Bank delivered strong Equities performance, offsetting a challenging environment for FICC.”
The bank cited strong organic capital generation and a 14.2% common equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio in announcing the buyback. It said the ratio would be 14.0% as of Sept. 30 after accounting for the repurchase. With the planned buyback, announced shareholder distributions for the year total £2.8 billion, 46% above the year-earlier amount. Barclays also announced a £500 million buyback in the third quarter of 2025.
The UK government has scheduled its Budget for Wednesday, Oct. 28. Reuters reported that investors are watching for the possibility of additional taxes on banks.
