Here’s Barclays’ side of last night’s deal where Caixabank bought its Spanish Retail Banking, Wealth and Investment Management and Corporate Banking businesses for €800m (£630m).
The bank said today it had also completed the sale of its UAE retail banking business to Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank for a pre-tax gain of £119m on Sunday.
Barclays is engaged in non-core disposals to improve its finances. It estimates it will lose £500m after tax on the Spanish deal, but leverage exposure will be reduced by £15bn by the transactions.
Its Spanish operations represent total assets of €22.2bn and liabilities of €20.5bn as at June 30. Barclays’ Investment Bank and Barclaycard operations are not part of the disposal. The bank said 2,400 Barclays employees and 262 branches will transfer to Caixa Bank on completion.
Antony Jenkins, Barclays chief executive, said: “I am pleased to be announcing further progress on Barclays non-core asset reductions through the transactions announced today. We remain on track to rebalance Barclays as part of our strategy to deliver sustainable returns for our shareholders.”
