It is perhaps worth remembering Barclays (BARC) chief executive Jes Staley has only been at the helm since the beginning of December. At 220p, the shares are now down 16 per cent over the past six months, as investors continue to lose faith in the direction of the business. We feel it's too soon to judge him just yet, but a turnaround feels a while off.
This week has brought a report in the Financial Times, passing without comment from the bank, suggesting Mr Staley has "raised questions about the strategic fit" of the group's Africa business. This division provided £2.7bn of income in the first nine months of the year, which is 14 per cent of its core turnover, and a slightly smaller proportion of profit. But with South Africa such a core market, the latest Zuma episode will have further compounded the currency-conversion knock to this business.
Meanwhile, the company has continued to reduce the assets currently branded non-core. Earlier this month it agreed to sell its Italian retail banking business to pleasingly named local bank CheBanca!, incurring a post-tax loss of £200m and a slight decline to net tangible assets. Now it has announced it was selling its risk analytics and benchmark indices business to financial publisher Bloomberg for £520m. This should provide a pre-tax gain of around £480m and slightly improve its tier-one capital, although it hardly touches the risk-weighted assets side of that equation.
