Barclays Quarterly Profits Rise 29%
LONDON (
) --
Barclays
(BCS) - Get Report
, the U.K. bank, said first-quarter profit rose 29% on the back of strong investment banking results.
Barclays said net profit in the quarter was 1.07 billion pounds ($1.64 billion), up from 826 million pounds a year earlier.
Barclays said its corporate and investment banking, and wealth management division reported pretax profit of 1.47 billion pounds, up from 1 billion pounds last year. Pretax profit at Barclays Capital rose 62%.
The bank said impairments in the quarter were down 35%.
Diversification of our business and risk, and good underlying performance, have combined to produce this result," said CEO John Varley, in a statement Friday. "The improvement that we have seen in impairment reflects the signs of economic recovery now evident in many of the markets in which we operate."
-- Reported by Joseph Woelfel in New York.
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