Spain's Caixabank eyes 150 mln eur synergies from Barclays deal

MADRID, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Spain's Caixabank (Other OTC: CAIXY - news) said on Monday that its acquisition of Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) ' retail and corporate banking operations in the country would bring around 150 million euros ($197 million) in gross cost savings by 2016.

Caixabank will buy the Spanish assets, as well as Barclays' wealth and investment management business, for 800 million euros, the two banks said late on Sunday.

The Barcelona-based lender was one of Spain's most acquisitive banks during a recent financial crisis, as it bought up smaller savings banks hit hard by a property market crash.

It has the country's biggest bank office network, and will be taking on 270 more branches - the bulk of which are in Madrid - as well as just over 2,400 staff and 21.6 billion euros in assets as part of the Barclays deal.

Caixabank added in a presentation that the purchase would involve around 300 million euros in restructuring costs, net of tax. The integrated assets would contribute about 80 million euros to its net profit in 2016, Caixabank said.

Its "fully-loaded" Basel III core capital ratio - a closely watched measure of its financial strength taking into changes from stricter rules on capital that need to be made by 2019 - would drop to 11.6 percent as a result of the deal, down from 12.4 percent at end-June this year.

(1 US dollar = 0.7619 euro) (Reporting by Sarah White; Editing by Ryan Woo)