Barclays says grabs IB market share in strong Q3

By Steve Slater

LONDON, Oct (HKSE: 3366-OL.HK - news) 27 (IFR) - Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) said its investment bank took market share from rivals in the third quarter, helping the UK bank post revenue gains in fixed income, equities, advisory and underwriting.

It followed US rivals in reporting strong revenues in debt trading, and also did well in other areas to lift optimism that after three years of restructuring it is better placed to compete with the big US banks.

"We had a very strong quarter, including relative to the US investment banks," said Jes Staley, Barclays chief executive.

"We like the footprint we now have post the moves we made in January," he said, referring to a pullback from Russia, Brazil and seven countries in Asia at the start of this year.

"We think we have the right amount of risk capital allocated to the investment bank, so we like our position today and we hope to continue to move that business forward," he told reporters on a conference call on Thursday.

Barclays reported credit and macro revenues of £947m for the third quarter, up 40% from a year ago and in line with the rise shown by the top five US banks.

Barclays' equities revenues rose 11% from a year ago to £461m and its banking fees were up 29% to £644m, both outperforming its US rivals and Deutsche Bank (LSE: 0H7D.L - news) .

That underpinned a pretax profit of £885m for the corporate and investment bank in the third quarter, more than double the £358m profit of a year ago and delivering a return on average tangible equity of 9.2%.

Barclays' group profits came in at £837m for the quarter, after the bank took another £600m to compensate customer mis-sold UK insurance products.

Staley said the investment bank's performance showed the benefits of diversification and helped Barclays weather market volatility and concerns about the UK economy following Britain's vote in June to leave the European Union.

He said Barclays was assessing if it needs to move any businesses or staff due to Brexit.

"We have to maintain the optionality to execute our business strategy. This political debate around Brexit is going to go on for a very long time, so we are looking at our options.

"There is not any imminent move that we would take, it's way too early to do that," he said.

Barclays said it reduced risk-weighted assets in its non-core unit by £3bn to £44bn last quarter, and remained on track to close the business by the end of next year as more unwanted assets are sold. (Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Gareth Gore)