Sale of Italian retail banking network completes
Barclays has completed the sale of its Italian retail banking network to CheBanca!, a member of the Mediobanca Group.
The transaction shows further progress in the rundown of Barclays Non-Core (BNC), resulting in a 30 June 2016 pro forma decrease in risk weighted assets (RWAs) of £0.6bn and a loss before tax of £258m which was booked in Q4 2015.
Barclays’ residual mortgage portfolio and other Non-Core retail, wealth and corporate loans will remain part of BNC, with the intention to exit or rundown over time.
Barclays will continue to operate investment banking and corporate banking in Italy.
Jes Staley, Barclays Group CEO, said: “I would like to take this opportunity to thank our colleagues in the Italian retail network and wish them well for the future. Their commitment and professionalism will be a great asset to CheBanca!, just as it has been to Barclays.
“Accelerating the run down of BNC is a key part of our strategy to close the gap between the Group’s returns and those in our strong core business. Last week we completed the sale of our analytics and index business to Bloomberg, and today’s announcement highlights again how we are on track to reach £20bn RWAs by the end of 2017.”