Barclays PLC (BCS) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Welcome to Barclays Half Year 2022 Results, Analysts and Investor Conference Call. I will now hand you over to C. S. Venkatakrishnan, Group Chief Executive and Anna Cross, Group Finance Director.

C. S. Venkatakrishnan

Good morning, everyone. I am pleased to be able to report strong financial results for the first half of 2022 for Barclays. Our profit before tax was £3.7 billion, leading to an Attributable Profit of £2.5 billion. This came after absorbing net impact of around £580 million over the half-year, relating to the over-issuance of securities under our US shelf registration statements. The Group income was £13.2 billion. Excluding the income benefit from hedging arrangements related to managing the impact of the over-issuance, Group income was £12.4 billion, which is up 10% year-on-year.

Our Statutory Group Return on Tangible Equity was 10.1%. We continue to focus on costs, particularly given inflationary pressures. We are also focused on the readiness of our balance sheet to withstand macroeconomic challenges. We remain mindful that we need to continue to support customers and clients through a more than uncertain economic period.

We remain well capitalized, with a CET1 ratio of 13.6%. This is comfortably within our target range of 13-14%. It remains one of my key priorities to target the return of excess capital to shareholders. I am pleased to announce a half year dividend of 2.25p per share, as well as an intention to initiate a further share buyback of up to £0.5 billion. This is in addition to the £1 billion share buyback which we announced at Full Year, and which we have nearly completed.

Before Anna and I go into more details on earnings, let me provide a brief update with respect to the over-issuance of securities under our US shelf registration statements. We are making good progress to resolve this matter. We have agreed the terms of the rescission offer for affected customers, which we announced on 25 July and which will be effective on 1 August. We continue to engage positively and constructively with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as we have done since we discovered and reported this item to them. In addition to an internal review, I have commissioned a counsel-led external review of the over-issuance matter. This will report to the Board shortly. We will consider all its findings carefully and take appropriate actions in response.