Barclays Corporate's Spanish exposure leads to losses
Friday, August 6, 2010 @ 12:01 PM
Barclays Corporate today reported a half year pre-tax loss of £377m, largely caused by the exposures to Spain’s property and construction industry.
The division of Barclays Bank said increased profits in UK and Ireland were wiped out by losses in Continental Europe and New Markets .
Impairment charges in the division increased 32% to £949m, largely driven by a £433m impairment based on the Spanish property loans book.
Barclays said increasing assumptions about the severity losses on the property loans book has led to the impairment.
The losses within the Barclays Corporate division were not indicative of results at Barclays Bank PLC which reported pre-tax profits of £3.95m for the half year – an increase of 45%.
Source: PropertyWeek