By Lawrence White
LONDON (Reuters) – Barclays reported first half profit fell more than expected due to a huge 1.9 billion pound hit for regulatory misteps mostly from covering the costs of having to buy back billions of dollars worth of securities it sold in error.
The British lender on Thursday reported profits before tax of 3.7 billion pounds ($4.51 billion) for the first six months of the year, down from 4.9 billion pounds in the same period a year ago and just below the average of analysts’ forecasts of 3.9 billion pounds.
Barclays’ results were marred by a 1.3 billion pound charge in the half to cover the costs of buying back $17.6 billion worth of securities it sold in breach of U.S. regulations, in an error that has blighted CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan’s first year in office.
The blow would have been worse but for a 758 million pound gain made on a hedge placed by Barclays against losses arising from the error.
Barclays also became the latest bank to set aside cash to cover US regulator investigations into non-compliant use of communications tools by staff, which it said would cost a total of $200m.
Despite the charges the bank said it would pay out a dividend of 2.5 pence per share and launch a buyback of 500 million pounds.
($1 = 0.8213 pounds)
(Reporting By Lawrence White, Editing by Iain Withers)
