Barclays Expects Significant Progress In Conduct Probes In 2015

(RTTNews) - The Chief Executive Officer of Barclays Plc. (BARC.L, BCS) Antony Jenkins said Thursday that the company remains focussed on addressing behaviours at the centre of historic conduct issues, including those relating to the on-going investigation into Foreign Exchange.

Resolving these issues is an important part of plan for Barclays, and he expects that the company will make significant, though sometimes difficult, progress in this area in 2015.

At the AGM, Jenkins said he is confident that 2015 will be a year of continued delivery for Barclays.

Although the global macroeconomic environment remains volatile - a situation expected to persist through the year - the company believes that there will be greater clarity on regulation and on several conduct issues during 2015. This will give the company much more certainty in predicting future performance.

The CEO said that the company's priority is to continue to strengthen the capital position of the Group.

The company expects to make further progress in 2015 on the run-down of the Non-Core unit and, in terms of cost, it expects to drive further reductions beyond those achieved in 2014, targeting a base of 16.3 billion pounds for the Group for 2015, excluding the costs to achieve Transform.

Jenkins noted that the company intends to build on the positive underlying momentum seen within our businesses, towards achievement of the 2016 Transform targets. And the company will accelerate delivery of these targets wherever possible.

Barclays incoming chairman John McFarlane said, "we need to ensure that Barclays is an attractive investment proposition going forward. Currently we are still trading below book value and with a dividend level less than we would wish. We therefore remain a recovery proposition for shareholders that we need to see through. We need to complete this phase and move to a sustainable long-term proposition that has an appropriate balance between dividend yield and EPS growth. This would require us to produce free capital and cash flow for dividends and investment."

"Recently, since below the line costs broadly offset our above the line operating profit, we have so far been unable to secure such a position satisfactorily. We therefore need to get the errors of the past behind us, to achieve a satisfactory rate of revenue growth, greater cost discipline and a more dynamic reallocation of capital," McFarlane said.