Barclays profits fall 14% due to mistake in operations and collapse of deals

By Lawrence White and Iain Withers

LONDON, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Barclays posted a 14% drop in annual profit as costs stemmed from a clerical error that caused it to oversell U.S. stocks on top of plummeting fees. trading received by its investment bank.

The British bank posted a pre-tax profit of £7 billion ($8.5 billion) in 2022, up from £8.2 billion a year earlier and just below analysts’ median forecast of 7, £2 billion, according to data collected by the bank.

Return on equity at the international subsidiary, which houses Barclays’ transatlantic investment bank, fell to 10.2% from 14.4% a year earlier, as fundraising advisory fees and capital took a hit. fell by nearly two-fifths year-on-year.

The division’s pre-tax profits also fell 23% to around £5bn.

Barclays said revenue from fixed income, currencies and commodities trading, its traditional strength, rose 65% year-on-year to £5.7bn, outpacing rivals Americans Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which recorded increases of 20% year-on-year and 38%, respectively, in 2022.

Barclays paid an annual dividend of 7.25p per share, as expected, and also announced a further £500million share buyback to bring the 2022 total to £1billion.

The bank recorded litigation and conduct costs of £1.6 billion during the year, including fines and damages to customers for exceeding agreed limits on the sale of investment products to UNITED STATES.

In its annual report, also published on Wednesday, Barclays said it had cut the pay of its senior executives by a total of £1million to reflect regulatory errors.

Barclays’ results were further marred by credit impairment charges of £1.2bn amid a slowing UK economy.

Barclays is the first major UK bank to report its annual results this week, and analysts and investors are expected to focus more on the bank’s forecast for this year’s outlook than its performance in 2022.

The bank said it would hit its target of achieving a more than 10% return on tangible capital next year, having previously described it as a “medium-term” goal.

($1 = 0.8239 pounds)

(Reporting by Lawrence White and Iain Withers, Editing by Sinead Cruise, Editing in Spanish by José Muñoz in the Gdansk Newsroom)