Barclays shares soar following promise to double dividend

Barclays stock jumped 5 percent on Thursday soon after the U.K banking giant announced it would double its dividend this year.

The bank’s pre-tax profit climbed 10 percent to £3.54 billion ($4.92 billion) in 2017. The company’s customer deposit also jumped 2 percent to £193.4 billion. Also, Barclays vowed to restore its dividend to 6.5 pence per share for 2018. The figure is more than double the last year's full-year dividend of 3 pence.

Despite the rising pre-tax profit for 2017 (compared to that of 2016), the figure was lower than analysts’expectation (£ 4.7 billion). But, the estimation was not updated to account for the U.S tax overhaul, reported.

Last year, Barclays suffered a net loss of £1.92 billion, part of which was a one-off £901 million charge on U.S. deferred tax assets.

What the CEO says

Barclays aims to boost growth from the group’s investment banking unit, as the company’s CEO Jes Staley said. Many market observers questioned the bank’s decision to inject capital into the not-so-profitable business.

The bank’s income from macro trading dropped by 29 percent, thanks to the historically moderate or lower volatility across markets which has blighted investment bank trading arms.

Staley will stay at Barclays

The CEO also confirmed that he would not leave the bank despite an ongoing investigation into his treatment of internal whistleblowers.

The investigation started in 2017 when Staley forced to get the name of an employee who wrote a letter questioning about the recruitment of a senior official by the bank. The U.K Financial Conduct Authority was supposed to issue the result of the investigation in October. But it has yet to publish it.

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