Barclays Profit Rises 12% and Buyback Added, but Bond Trading Slips

Barclays (LSE: BARC) reported third-quarter profit before tax of £2.3bn, up 12% on a year earlier, and announced a new share buyback of up to £500m. Attributable profit rose 13% to £1,646m and earnings per share climbed 18% to 12.3p.

Income rose 3% to £7.4bn, while credit impairment charges, the money set aside for loans that may go bad, fell 20% to £503m. Return on tangible equity, profit measured against shareholder capital, reached 11.7% against 10.6% a year earlier.

The shares are flat so far on Thursday, trading just above 419p. For the year-to-date, Barclays is down 12%.

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Shareholders get more back. Distributions announced so far this year total £2.8bn, up 46%. The core capital ratio (CET1) was 14.2% at the end of September and falls to 14.0% after the new buyback, inside the bank’s 13% to 14% target range.

The quarter was softer than the one before it. Profit before tax of £2,322m compares with £3,252m in the second quarter, which included a gain of about £225m from the sale of an American Airlines portfolio.

Within the Investment Bank, income rose 1% to £3,129m. Equities income jumped 47% to £1,010m, but fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) trading fell 19% to £1,012m from £1,256m, with lower client activity in rates and credit and further adversity in September from the macroeconomic environment.

US Consumer Bank returned 10.9% on tangible equity against 13.5%, and its profit before tax fell to £126m from £155m as costs rose 14% in the first full quarter including Best Egg.

Chief executive C. S. Venkatakrishnan said:

With one quarter to go before the end of our original three-year plan, we have either achieved or are on track to achieve all of our 2026 Group targets.

C. S. Venkatakrishnan, Barclays chief executive

The next test is capital. Basel 3.1 rules, due from the 1st of January 2027, are expected to add £8bn to £15bn of risk-weighted assets, a hit of 30 to 55 basis points to CET1, against a 2028 aim of returning more than £15bn to shareholders over 2026 to 2028 and RoTE above 14%.

Full-year results are provisionally due on the 9th of February 2027.