Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Let's turn our attention to another big bank, Barclays's reporting numbers,
Speaker 2: the first of the major UK banks to drop its
Speaker 2: numbers onto our screens. Let's talk about the numbers before
Speaker 2: we get to Venkat Investment Bank revenue for the fourth
Speaker 2: quarter two point sixty one billion, that is ahead of estimates.
Speaker 2: Pre tax profits also higher than expected at one point
Speaker 2: sixty six billion. The bank has announced a further share
Speaker 2: buy backs, but a share buy back this morning ces
Speaker 2: n Kata Christian joining us now at the Barclays CEO,
Speaker 2: always the pleasure of Vencak. Good morning. The numbers are
Speaker 2: better than anticipated this time last year. You announced new targets,
Speaker 2: you announced new returns to shareholders. He gave the banker boost.
Speaker 2: Are you ahead with this set of numbers one year
Speaker 2: on the way you thought you would be?
Speaker 3: Look, I'm very happy with the results we have demonstrated.
Speaker 3: If you look at our profits this year for twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, it's eight point one billion pounds. It's twenty
Speaker 3: four percent ahead of the numbers for twenty three. It's
Speaker 3: based on a six percent growth in revenue, one percent
Speaker 3: reduction in cost holding impairments flat. If you look more
Speaker 3: broadly at what we laid out in that three year
Speaker 3: plan to which you referred, you know, are rote this
Speaker 3: year we guide it to greater than ten percent. We
Speaker 3: printed ten point five percent. We announced that greater than
Speaker 3: ten billion pounds worth of share buybacks and dividends over
Speaker 3: the next three years twenty four to twenty five, twenty six.
Speaker 3: And with this share buyback we announced today we've done
Speaker 3: three billion for this year and we are rebalancing the
Speaker 3: bank we are. You know, we've deployed about thirteen billion
Speaker 3: pounds of order WA's into our UK facing businesses. That's
Speaker 3: about it's more than a third of the thirty billion
Speaker 3: we've planned. And the Investment Bank, which was fifty eight
Speaker 3: percent of the bank in order Wa terms a year ago,
Speaker 3: is now fifty six on its way to fifty which
Speaker 3: is our target. So so far, so.
Speaker 1: Good, Vick.
Speaker 2: We've just been having a conversation with Betina Rollo, the
Speaker 2: CEO of Comets Bank. She's targeting on rite returnal tangible
Speaker 2: equacy of fifteen percent by twenty twenty eight. Do you
Speaker 2: think Barclays could achieve some number similar to that? How
Speaker 2: high could that figure go? You've got unicredits in the
Speaker 2: kind of in the high teens. Now, does Barclays have
Speaker 2: work to do on that number?
Speaker 3: Well, we already have businesses that are performing well above that.
Speaker 3: So if you look at the announcement today, our Barclay's
Speaker 3: UK business has produced twenty three percent our ote for
Speaker 3: the last year. Our UK corporate bank is in the
Speaker 3: mid teens, I think sixteen percent. Our private banking and
Speaker 3: wealth isn't the high twenties. It all depends on the mix,
Speaker 3: and we are shifting the bank in terms of mix
Speaker 3: to the higher returning businesses. We've also said that we've
Speaker 3: put out a plan till twenty twenty six. Twenty twenty
Speaker 3: six is not an end date, it's a point in
Speaker 3: time and we'll look forward from there.
Speaker 4: We had it's creedy in London. Talk to us a
Speaker 4: little bit about your trading revenue here. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: not a secret that all the banks on both sides
Speaker 4: of the Atlantic have gotten a little bit of a
Speaker 4: boost driven by the volatility from the Trump administration. How
Speaker 4: long do you expect that to last as we start
Speaker 4: to see a little bit more complacency creeping into these markets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, the markets, as you said, Kritie have been
Speaker 3: quite volatile towards the fourth quarter of last year, which
Speaker 3: we've reported, and it's stretched into the first quarter of
Speaker 3: this year. It gives opportunities for our equity businesses. Where
Speaker 3: I'm standing on the equity floor, and our equity business
Speaker 3: over twenty twenty four was an outperformer, as was our
Speaker 3: securitised products business, and we've been gaining market share with clients.
Speaker 3: Those are the structural things I look for, and it's
Speaker 3: a structural performance we try to create, and then we'll
Speaker 3: take advantage of cyclical factors as and when they come.
Speaker 3: But our plan is based on a very conservative estimate
Speaker 3: of what the market wallet will be.
Speaker 4: Let's stick with the Trump theme, perhaps from a different
Speaker 4: angle here. There's a big expectation in these markets and
Speaker 4: in these banks that the deregulatory agenda from the United
Speaker 4: States is going to have a spillover effect into Europe
Speaker 4: and into the UK, even pushing some of the regulators
Speaker 4: on this side of the pond into loosening some of
Speaker 4: those strings. How are you thinking about that? Is that
Speaker 4: spillover effects something you're seeing tangibly in the first few
Speaker 4: days of Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: So the regulatory agenda in the US has been pretty
Speaker 3: well signaled by President Trump before he came into office,
Speaker 3: and it started to be enacted in the UK and Europe.
Speaker 3: You're already seeing in the UK examples of the government
Speaker 3: taking the line towards a more fairly balanced regulatory profile.
Speaker 3: They've spoken about in the UK the Competition and Markets
Speaker 3: Authority and what's called the Financial Ombudsman Service. I expect
Speaker 3: that you will see some rebalancing, but you know, I
Speaker 3: should say that we want the rebalancing in the context
Speaker 3: of strongly regulated markets. We think all the major banks
Speaker 3: as included good our advocates of a well regulated financial system.
Speaker 3: It's what makes London great, and so there should be
Speaker 3: some rebalancing. But in the context of a well regulated
Speaker 3: financial system.
Speaker 1: Good morning to Banka. Sticking with the theme of what
Speaker 1: changes in the United States might bring, there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of expectation going into another Trump administration that perhaps
Speaker 1: we get more M and A, that the animal spirits argument.
Speaker 1: But then there's also a lot of uncertainty what the
Speaker 1: conversations around M and A look like.
Speaker 3: To you, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. There's a
Speaker 3: balance that's going on. On the one hand, what you've
Speaker 3: got is deregulation, which allows companies to think more confidently
Speaker 3: about whether the choices that they make will indeed be
Speaker 3: permitted by the government. Then you still have a relative
Speaker 3: stability in financial markets, both in interest rates and in
Speaker 3: credit spreads. And then lastly, though, you've got tariffs, which
Speaker 3: introduces questions regarding particular countries in particular industries. So I
Speaker 3: think companies are going to have to balance the three
Speaker 3: and over time we will get a clearer picture. It's
Speaker 3: too soon to tell, too soon.
Speaker 1: To sell on that one. Let me ask you, Christy
Speaker 1: was asking you about trading revenues. You talked in glowing
Speaker 1: terms about the equities team. I wonder what comments you
Speaker 1: have on FICK revenues this morning. I see that for
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter the number came in a little below
Speaker 1: what some of the analysts were looking for. Is there
Speaker 1: any explanation you can reach for their venct.
Speaker 3: Look, the fixed income is the great strength of Barclays.
Speaker 3: It's you know, the house of Barclays was built on
Speaker 3: fixed income. We had a weaker start at the start
Speaker 3: of the year, but especially in our European rates and
Speaker 3: our macro businesses, it's been picking up through the year
Speaker 3: and into the fourth quarter. Our securitized products business in
Speaker 3: the US has been particularly strong, so I'm very confident
Speaker 3: about fixed income performance going forward.
Speaker 1: Okay, confident about the performance. Thank you very much, Benkat,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining US. Barkley CEOCSN Category Nan with
Speaker 1: us to talk about those results this morning.