-- Barclays (BARC.L) reiterated its financial targets for 2026 as it delivered a "solid" first-quarter performance despite logging higher impairment charges over the period.
The British banking group's profit attributable to shareholders for the three months ended March 31 rose year over year to 1.93 billion pounds sterling from 1.86 billion pounds, according to a Tuesday earnings release. Before tax, profit reached 2.81 billion pounds, up from 2.72 billion pounds.
Credit impairment charges widened to 823 million pounds from 643 million pounds, largely driven by a single name charge of 228 million pounds at the company's investment banking division. Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that the charge was linked to Market Financial Solutions, a UK-based specialized lender that collapsed in February.
"PBT was in line with consensus driven by better than expected revenues in the IB partially offset by a top-up for motor finance commissions (GBP105m), an impairment provision for MFS (GBP228m) and a cost miss in [Barclays UK]. On an underlying pre-provision profit basis, there was a 2% beat," analysts at RBC Capital Markets said in a quicktake note.
Barclays also announced plans to launch a new 500 million-pound buyback once its current 1 billion-pound share repurchase program is completed.
For full-year 2026, the group reaffirmed its goal to achieve a total income of 31 billion pounds and a return on tangible equity of more than 12%. Looking further ahead, Barclays also confirmed its 2028 targets, including a greater than 14% RoTE and plans to return more than 15 billion pounds of capital to shareholders over the 2026 to 2028 period through dividends and buybacks.
As of Tuesday midday, the stock was trading nearly 1% lower in London.