BARCLAYS NET PROFIT RISES AS NEW CEO APPOINTED

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LONDON (TIP): British lender Barclays, fresh from appointing new chief executive James ‘Jes’ Staley, on Thursday logged rising third-quarter net profit boosted by its investment banking division. The appointment of 58-year-old American investment banker Jes Staley was meanwhile seen as an attempt by the bank to focus anew on its investment arm. Staley is the former chief executive of JP Morgan’s investment bank and currently works for US hedge fund Blue Mountain Capital Management. He will take up the new role from December 1.

Profit after taxation rose by 10% to £417 million (578 million euros, $638 million) in the three months through September compared with a year earlier, Barclays said in a results statement one day after appointing its new boss.

Staley has vowed to “preserve and enhance” trust in the lender, whose reputation has been badly damaged by a series of scandals including foreign exchange and Libor interest rate rigging.

Barclays is meanwhile in the middle of a long-term plan to axe 19,000 jobs in a major restructuring.

“Today’s results show another quarter of progress in our core businesses alongside the early effects of some of the changes that we are making,” said chairman John McFarlane in Thursday’s statement.

However, pre-tax profit including restructuring costs fell 10 percent to £1.43 billion in the third quarter. That missed the £1.65-billion average estimate of analysts polled by Barclays.

The lender was hit by a £290 million-compensation charge to customers related to foreign exchange and £270 million to settle residential mortgage-backed securities claims in the United States.

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