Barclays share price: Group set to close down energy business

Barclays (LON:BARC) is set to close down its energy business, Reuters has reported. The move, which will come as the group trims non-core assets under chief executive Jes Staley, is expected to affect dozens of jobs.

Barclays’ share price has fallen deep into the red in today’s session, having lost 2.90 percent to 212.70p as if 12:38 GMT, underperforming the broader London market where the benchmark FTSE 100 index has given up 0.82 percent to stand at 6,697.36 points amid uncertainty ahead of the Italian referendum and investor caution preceding the monthly US jobs report. The bank’s shares have lost nearly three percent of their value this year, as compared with about a seven-percent rise in the Footsie.

Reuters quoted Barclays as saying in an internal memo yesterday that it would close the energy business within its ‘Macro’ trading division, saying that it would have required ‘significant incremental investment’ to maintain and grow the business, and that the resources would be better deployed elsewhere.
“This is the right decision for Macro and the broader firm as we invest for the long term to best serve our clients,” Joe Corcoran, head of markets at the blue-chip lender, said in the memo, as quoted by the newswire. A Barclays spokesman meanwhile told Reuters by email that the group had “made the decision to redeploy capital, technology resources and people into our core areas of strength so that we can best serve the needs of our global Markets and Banking clients and earn an attractive return for our shareholders”.

The move comes with chief executive Jes Staley looking to trim the group’s non-core assets and turn Barclays into a transatlantic bank. Earlier this week, the FTSE 100 group completed the sale of its Wealth and Investment Management business in Singapore and Hong Kong.
As of 13:00 GMT, Friday, 02 December, Barclays share price is 211.90p.