BARC Barclays Plc

By Sabela Ojea

Barclays PLC on Wednesday reported a significant rise in pretax profit for the second quarter, surpassing market views and pre-pandemic levels, and said that it aims to launch another share buyback program after resuming dividends.

The FTSE 100 bank posted a pretax profit of 2.58 billion pounds ($3.58 billion), up from GBP359 million a year earlier. Pretax profit for the second quarter of 2019 stood at GBP1.53 billion.

Pretax profit had been expected to reach GBP1.70 billion, according to Barclays' compiled consensus.

Barclays benefited from credit impairment releases of GBP797 million after booking charges of GBP55 million in the previous quarter.

The U.K. lender's total income rose to GBP5.42 billion, compared with GBP5.34 billion a year earlier. This compares with GBP5.54 billion for the second quarter of 2019. It had been expected to generate total income of GBP5.31 billion for the latest quarter.

The board has declared a dividend of 2.0 pence a share, higher than the expected 1.8 pence a share, following the Bank of England's decision to remove restrictions on limited dividend payouts

The bank also said that it intends to initiate a further share buyback of up to GBP500 million after having completed the latest GBP700 million buyback in April.

The bank ended the second quarter with a common equity Tier 1 ratio --a key measure of balance-sheet strength-- of 15.1%. The planned buyback would have an effect of 17 basis points on the CET1 ratio.

Write to Sabela Ojea at sabela.ojea@wsj.com; @sabelaojeaguix

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 28, 2021 03:01 ET (07:01 GMT)

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