Barclays embroiled in new investigation

(Financial Times) -- Barclays shares shrugged off two fresh setbacks on Friday as the disclosure of a £450m mis-selling charge and a regulatory investigation into its finance director was offset by a better than expected performance in the first six months of 2012.

Shares in the bank, which is reeling from a slew of regulatory issues and senior departures, rose 5 per cent to 161.35p in morning trading in London after it announced that underlying first-half pre-tax profit rose 13 per cent to £4.23bn.

Analysts had on average expected £3.82bn. The underlying profit figure was dented by a £290m fine levied on Barclays for manipulating submissions used in calculating the Libor and Euribor benchmark interest rates.

The rate-rigging led to the departure of Bob Diamond, its chief executive. Marcus Agius, its chairman, is also stepping down, while Jerry Del Missier, chief operating officer, has resigned too.

However, on a statutory basis that also tots up the impact of other negative factors, first-half pre-tax profit fell 71 per cent to £759m.

Part of that decline was down to the newly-quantified cost of compensating small and medium-sized businesses that were mis-sold interest rate hedging products.

Barclays was one of four banks to agree a settlement with the Financial Services Authority, the City watchdog, in June over the mis-selling of interest rate swaps to SMEs. The others were HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland.

At the time, Barclays said: "It is currently anticipated that the financial impact of remediation costs will not be material to the group."

However, the first-half results released on Friday included a £450m provision related to the "review and redress exercise" agreed with the FSA.

Barclays also disclosed that the FSA had begun an investigation into four current and former senior employees, including Chris Lucas, finance director.

It said the investigation was into the "sufficiency of disclosure in relation to fees payable under certain commercial agreements and whether these may have related to Barclays Capital raisings in June and November 2008." The bank said it considered that it had satisfied its disclosure obligations.

The steep fall in Barclays' statutory pre-tax profit was mainly attributable to a £2.95bn "own credit" accounting loss on the fluctuating value of its issued debt.

It also had to absorb an already-announced £300m charge related to the mis-selling of payment protection insurance, which has been the subject of another industry-wide scandal.

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