Friday, February 23, 2018

Barclays Bank Enriches Its Investors

Barclays PLC showed its confidence in future earnings on Thursday by restoring its full dividend.   Shares in the British bank were up 5.1 percent to 212 pence sending Barclays to the top of the FTSE index risers after it said it would resume paying its full dividend of 6.5 pence per share, which it halved in March 2016 in order to provide extra funds to pay for restructuring.  Barclays posted a pretax profit of 3.5 billion pounds ($4.9 billion) for 2017.

“It is our firm intent, over time, to return a greater proportion of our earnings to shareholders, both through the annual dividend and in other ways,” Barclays Chief Executive Jes Staley said in a statement.

Barclays was the worst-performing bank in the FTSE 100 index in 2017, falling nine percent on concerns about both its investment bank and its legal and regulatory troubles. Profit in the Barclays International division was down 22 percent in 2017, driven by a 4 percent fall in income from its investment bank and rising impairments, the bank said.  The bank also disclosed a gender pay gap of almost 50 percent in its International unit.

This follows Lloyd's bank rewarding their share-holders

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