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Johannesburg - Barclays [JSE:BGA] Africa Group posted an expected 10% rise in first-half headline earnings on Wednesday, boosted by its newly integrated Africa operations.
The pan-African lender, majority owned by the eponymous British bank, said headline earnings per share came in at 720.9 cents in the six months to the end of June, compared with a restated 655.7c a year ago.
Barclays had flagged headline earnings would rise by between 8% and 11%. Last year's first-half earnings, which did not include profit from its wider African structure, grew by 8%.
Under a deal concluded last year, Barclays Plc handed over ownership of eight African businesses to its South African subsidiary in exchange for a 62.3% stake in a new combined entity that was renamed Barclays Africa Group.
Operations such as Nigeria, Mauritius, Kenya and Uganda were brought under one umbrella but Egypt and Zimbabwe were left out of the deal.
"The Barclays Africa Limited acquisition was earnings accretive, increasing the group's Headline earnings per share (Heps) by 2.3%," Barclays said in its filing.
Headline earnings from the rest of Africa grew by 34% to R1bn, faster than the 6% growth experienced in the bank's biggest market, South Africa.
Despite anaemic growth in the country, the South African Bank (Sarb) has raised interest rates by 25 basis points this year, saying it needed to keep a lid on inflation.
Analysts expect that Sarb will maintain its hawkish stance, which may augur well for banking profits but push the number of non-performing loans higher.
Barclays Africa said credit impairments fell 7% after a push to rein in bad loans, which spiked in 2013 for most South African banks following a spate of unbridled unsecured lending.
Net interest income - the measure of income from lending - grew 10% to R17.2bn as the bank passed on higher interest rates.
The third-largest lender on the JSE, Barclays Africa is the first of the "big four" banks to report on this season's earnings. Its trailing five-year EPS has contracted by 1.5%, according Thomson Reuters data, lagging an average 4.1% growth by peers.
Its shares have gained more than 30% so far this year, trouncing a 20% advance by Johannesburg's banking index.
