Barclays to slash costs

London - British bank Barclays will sell assets, reshape its portfolio and cut annual costs by £1bn ($1.6bn) to boost profitability as it grapples with tougher regulations that are depressing returns.

Bob Diamond, the US investment banker who took over as chief executive at the start of the year, said on Tuesday tougher regulations will result in lower returns and he is now targeting a 13% return on equity.

Diamond said he will cut costs by £500m this year and by at least £1bn annually by 2013, and is closing or selling businesses that do not measure up.

That includes Russian retail banking and its Indonesian operations, while it will shift the focus of its troubled Spanish business to higher-margin areas.

"There are no sacred cows," said Diamond. "Our focus on capital and returns takes absolute priority. The result will be an organisation that's more efficient, more responsive to customers and clients, will run at a lower cost and is fit for the new regulatory environment."

The bank will cut travel and consultancy work and take a harder line on underperforming staff, although group headcount is likely to end this year "flat to slightly higher", Diamond said.

His comment on returns came as the bank beat forecasts with a 32% rise in 2010 earnings, thanks to a strong end to the year at investment bank Barclays Capital (BarCap) and lifting its shares to a five-month high.

"It's a good performance at BarCap in Q4, bucking the trend we've seen elsewhere. It seems the investment in equities and investment banking has paid off and has given it a good tailwind going into 2011," said Mike Trippitt, analyst at Oriel Securities.

By 1500 GMT Barclays shares were up 5.1% at 326.6 pence making it the top performing UK blue-chip and outperforming a 1% rise by the European banking index.

Barclays has previously targeted a return on equity of 13-15% for its retail banking operations and 15% for BarCap. But the group's RoE sagged to just 7.2% last year, which Diamond said was "unacceptable".

The bank is expected to exit or scale back more capital intensive businesses, and target growth on areas that use up less capital under new regulations.

It follows rival Credit Suisse in saying tougher regulations will depress returns, and other banks may follow suit as capital costs rise.

"Average returns for the industry will be in single digits unless banks take action," Diamond said.

BarCap rebound

Barclays said staff costs for 2010 rose by a fifth to £11.9bn. It said much of the rise was due to the payment of past year deferrals, and bonuses for last year fell by 7%, including a 12% fall at BarCap.

Average pay this year for BarCap's 24 800 bankers, including benefits and awards deferred from the past, was about 235 000 pounds.

Barclays reported a pretax profit of £6.1bn ($9.8bn) for 2010, up from underlying profit of £4.6bn in 2009 and ahead of the average forecast of £5.7bn, according to Reuters Estimates.

The rise was mainly thanks to reduced losses from bad debts, which fell 30% to £5.7bn. That was despite losses from bad corporate loans in Spain more than trebling to £900m due to troubles in property and construction.

It also took a £532m hit on Protium, a fund set up two years ago to ring-fence its toxic assets, under an accounting charge because it wants to end the loan earlier than the 10 years planned.

Revenues for BarCap were £3.4bn in the fourth quarter, up 20% from the third quarter and recovering from several quarters of decline, faring better than rivals.

Rich Ricci, co-CEO of BarCap, said he is confident the unit can hit quarterly revenue of about £3.7bn, despite its revenue falling to £13.3bn pounds last year, down a quarter on its record 2009 performance.

A buildup in equities and advisory is paying off and Diamond predicted their annual revenues will rise by £2bn in the next couple of years, from just over £4bn last year.

Barclays said it had a good start to 2011 and income and profit in January was above the 2010 average monthly run rates.

It confirmed changes to the way bonuses are paid, saying that in future performance awards would be deferred over three years and would only be made if the group's key core Tier 1 measure of capital strength was at least 7%.

Analysts have said the bank is likely to struggle to deliver returns above its cost of capital in the coming years, which has left its shares trading at a discount to rivals.

Diamond said he aims to reduce the cost of equity to about 10%, from 12.5% last year.