Sale of Risk Analytics and Index Solutions business to Bloomberg completes

Barclays has completed the sale of Barclays Risk Analytics and Index Solutions Ltd. (“BRAIS”) to Bloomberg for approximately £615m.

BRAIS incorporates Barclays’ fixed income benchmark indices, including the Barclays Aggregate family of indices, and BRAIS strategy indices. The benchmark indices have been rebranded as Bloomberg Barclays Indices, to reflect the change in ownership, for an initial period of five years. The transaction includes the sale of intellectual property in relation to the POINT portfolio analytics tool. Barclays has agreed to continue to operate POINT for 18 months post completion.

Barclays will retain its quantitative investment strategy index business and the Barclays strategy indices, which remains a core product of Barclays Corporate & International. The calculation and maintenance of Barclays’ strategy indices will be outsourced to Bloomberg.

The pre-tax gain recognised on completion of the transaction is approximately £535m. Given the nature of the BRAIS business, it will have a negligible impact on risk weighted assets.

Jes Staley, Barclays Group CEO, said: “Our core businesses – the Barclays of the future – are already impressively profitable today. That’s why we are focused on closing down Barclays Non-Core as fast as possible, so that we can unlock the earnings power of Barclays UK and Barclays Corporate & International for our shareholders. Today’s announcement takes us another step towards the delivery of our strategy, and we intend to keep up the pace of progress to Non-Core closure in 2017.

“As I said at our interim results, the second half of this year will include even more progress in Non-Core rundown as we anticipate closing the sale of our cards business in Iberia; the sale of our Wealth business in Asia; and the sale of our Italian retail network. These transactions, including BRAIS today, will bring down annualised costs in Non-Core by £250m and reduce RWAs by a further £3bn.

“I am confident the BRAIS business, under Bloomberg’s ownership, will have a strong future, and we will work closely together to ensure a smooth transition for our clients and our people.”