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Anyone buying Barclays?

Raptor
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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#91055

Postby Raptor » October 27th, 2017, 8:37 am

Moderator Message:
There is a forum for banking. Moving from Shares. Raptor.

gbjbaanb
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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#91063

Postby gbjbaanb » October 27th, 2017, 9:10 am

I think its because they see it as not being run well by the new guy, even though they've got rid of their 'bad bank' they have 20 investigations going on against them and have not made any provision for the last of the PPI.
Khalaf feels Barclays "appears to be stalling somewhat" and said it was "touch and go whether the bank will break even in 2017".

https://www.digitallook.com/news/news-a ... 35833.html

hiriskpaul
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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#91072

Postby hiriskpaul » October 27th, 2017, 9:38 am

The only Barclays paper I hold is BCS-D, which is past first call date. Lower profits are good as far as I am concerned, provided not too low, as I think it may help delay the inevitable call, loss of an irreplaceable USD income stream and the CGT bill ;)

I will be surprised if BCS-D is not called by the end of this financial year though.

ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#91240

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » October 27th, 2017, 6:17 pm

The company have argued:

We will...operate in selected markets, focusing our activities upon those areas of business where we can be profitable and where profits will be available in the future. We will reallocate our resources away from activities which offer little prospect of adequate returns.


The problem is they said this in 1988.

The dividend per share is back at late 1980s levels. On a nominal basis, at least - adjusted for inflation, it's probably less.

Best wishes

Mark.

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#91654

Postby beeswax » October 29th, 2017, 8:11 pm

I don't understand some of these shares but what's new? ;)

Barc pays about 3p total in dividends and no sign of that increasing and yet LLOY pays about the same and is a third the price?

Paying 2 quid for 3p does not seem to be a good investment until there are signs that will increase significantly.

ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#91655

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » October 29th, 2017, 8:22 pm

beeswax wrote:Barc pays about 3p total in dividends and no sign of that increasing...does not seem to be a good investment until there are signs that will increase significantly.


Given the lack of growth, chairman John McFarlane acknowledged the need for a high and progressive dividend policy to drive shareholder returns. He mentioned a dividend that equated to a yield of 4% or more. At a share price of 185p, that's a dividend of 7.4p which is somewhat more than the 6.5p they had been paying before the dividend cut (the 2016 dividend cut, not the 2008-09 one, or the 1992 one...) Of course the share price was closer to 300p when he said it...

Hopefully we will get some clarity early in 2018 when the full year 2017 results are announced.

Best wishes


Mark.

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#91659

Postby johnhemming » October 29th, 2017, 8:32 pm

I think there are general nerves about banking related in part to Brexit uncertainty and also the low interest rate regime. There are also uncertainties about what the USA will do in fining UK banks. (inc Barclays).

I am a holder.

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#91683

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » October 30th, 2017, 7:01 am

On a nominal basis, Barclays has paid me more in dividends than the book cost of the shares. Therefore, I can't lose money(!) Initially, it seemed to me to have come through the financial crisis in relatively good shape while RBS and Lloyds crashed and burned by 80 or 90%. Early in 2010, the shares headed towards £4 which compared to a pre-crisis peak of almost £8 (there was lots of dilution in the meantime when they raised capital). The issue seemed to be adjusting to the new environment with higher capital ratios; raising the ROE; and rebuilding the dividend over time.

However, since 2008 returns have been below the cost of capital and they might not rise above it until they hit the highly ambitious goal of 10%+ ROE in 2020. It's basically a decade without any economic profit being made, and misconduct charges eating away profits. I sold a big chunk of my holding in 2015 at 239p and benefited from it so far, as proceeds went into Victrex and Paddy Power which have increased substantially whereas Barclays continued to fall. At some point, I think my patience will run out and I may get rid of the remaining holding. I suspect that'll be the cue for Barclays' share price and dividends to soar!

Best wishes


Mark.

ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#93050

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » November 4th, 2017, 1:32 pm

Over to Tushar at the investor breakfast (were the croissants free?)

In terms of capital distributions, I don’t want to say too much on this because we’ll be talking a lot more about this at full-year results, and I don’t want to preview it. And one of the reasons I don’t want to preview it too much, of course, is this is a matter for the Board. The Board hasn’t authorised me to say a whole lot yet, so I won’t. But at least to try and be helpful, I’d say that return of capital back to shareholders is something that’s very important to the Board and the management of this company, so that is something that we will endeavour to do. The form in which we’d like to return that capital, we’ll talk more about at the full-year, whether it’s dividends or whether it’s specials, whether it’s common dividends – there’s more to come on that. But we do understand that a decent common dividend with some further ability to distribute capital is an important thing for this company to do. So more to come on that. I’ll leave it there, I don’t want to be too pre-emptive.

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#93721

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » November 7th, 2017, 7:49 am

Did anyone see this?

For a City audience, however, the jaw-dropper in the extract from Brown’s upcoming book will be his revelation that Barclays, in the midst of the crisis, tried to buy the failed Royal Bank of Scotland. This is astonishing and has not emerged from other front-line accounts, including those of Brown’s former chancellor, Alistair Darling.

Brown offers little detail about how seriously Barclays and its then-chief executive, John Varley, pursued the idea. But the mere fact the Barclays’ executives thought RBS could be within their sights speaks volumes about the blind risk-taking of those days.


https://www.theguardian.com/business/ni ... revelation

Of course it depends if we can believe Gordon Brown.

Best wishes


Mark.

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#93744

Postby GoSeigen » November 7th, 2017, 9:29 am

FredBloggs wrote:Barclays had a close escape then.

HBOS nearly destroyed Lloyds. Don't forget, Brown bullied Lloyds into taking over HBOS.


Well, exactly the opposite evidence is being given in court by Lloyds's former CEO from the time of the takeover; if people have solid reasons to "remember" the contrary, they should be in court arguing the case.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ells-court

Given the choice between a CEO's evidence under oath and some bloke on a bulletin board, I know which I believe.


GS

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#93751

Postby Alaric » November 7th, 2017, 9:52 am

GoSeigen wrote:Well, exactly the opposite evidence is being given in court by Lloyds's former CEO from the time of the takeover


At the very least the Government were sweet on the deal by virtue of not raising monopoly issues. The takeover was by offer of Lloyds shares and without the Government later propping up Lloyds by taking a share stake might have brought down Lloyds as well.

If the alternative was nationalisation, why would that be a terrible outcome for Lloyds?

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#94713

Postby BobGe » November 10th, 2017, 12:51 pm

GoSeigen wrote:Given the choice between a CEO's evidence under oath and some bloke on a bulletin board, I know which I believe.

Neither of them?

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#94727

Postby GoSeigen » November 10th, 2017, 2:07 pm

Alaric wrote:
GoSeigen wrote:Well, exactly the opposite evidence is being given in court by Lloyds's former CEO from the time of the takeover


At the very least the Government were sweet on the deal by virtue of not raising monopoly issues.


That's not what the post said, is it?


The takeover was by offer of Lloyds shares and without the Government later propping up Lloyds by taking a share stake might have brought down Lloyds as well.


Your memory is faulty. The Government ""took a share stake" propping up LLOY and HBOS in October 2008 before LLOY takeover of HBOS:

"The takeover was approved by HBOS shareholders on 12 December [2008]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBOS#Acqu ... Lloyds_TSB

Lloyds and their shareholders were well aware of bank capitalisation issues by Dec 2008.


For me as a BARC and LLOY shareholder, I'm surprised at the anti-bank party-political rhetoric hereabouts. Doubly so as it seems to come from the rightwing who ought to be pro-capitalism and pro-banks. The HBOS takeover was wonderful for LLOY IMO. It happened almost at the market bottom [not at the very bottom admittedly but who here was buying HBOS and LLOY right at the bottom?] and it made LLOY into a huge and potentially very profitable organisation.

The government pulled off an awesome rescue of the banks in 2008; it's just sad for the taxpayer that their successors dumped the shares way too early and way too cheaply, taking all the risk but getting none of the upside. Reminds me of when I very foolishly sold all my apple shares having broken even just after the launch of the iPhone. Sad.

GS

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#94842

Postby hiriskpaul » November 11th, 2017, 12:26 am

I don't find this revelation particularly staggering. The very best time to go bottom fishing is when a competitor is on its knees, unlike RBS under Fred who did the exact opposite. Doing the deal may well have been disastrous for Barclays shareholders, but exploring the possibility at the time seems perfectly sensible. I was bottom fishing bank paper at the time as well, albeit on a much smaller scale and not for ords.

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#94855

Postby scrumpyjack » November 11th, 2017, 8:10 am

The trouble with Barclays is that it seems to have always been run for the executives and not the shareholders. It also still has a lot of unresolved legal issues and, as a previous post pointed out, the assets may well not be worth book value. The latest results show a big write off on selling part of their South Africa business.

With Barclays its a case not of 'jam tomorrow' but of jam the dcade after next, by which time these old banks will have been swept away by disruptors and new technology.

I really should sell mine but I still keep falling for the mirage of a recovery round the corner! I've been buying more Lloyd's which seems a more uncomplicated bank whose PPI troubles seem to be within sight of an end.

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#94977

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » November 11th, 2017, 4:34 pm

scrumpyjack wrote:I really should sell mine but I still keep falling for the mirage of a recovery round the corner! I've been buying more Lloyd's which seems a more uncomplicated bank whose PPI troubles seem to be within sight of an end.


You're not alone in that!

I remember back in 2013 when the share price was comfortably over 300p - the rights issue price of 185p seemed like a bargain to me, providing a 3.5% dividend yield on the rights issue shares. The managers not only maintained the dividend per share on an enlarged equity base, but promised to increase the dividend payout ratio to 40% by 2014. And then there were the brokers who forecast dividends reaching 20p in 2015(!) Not that long ago, Ian Gordon of Investec was expecting a 15p dividend in 2017.

In hindsight, Barclays certainly came through the financial crisis better than RBS or Lloyds but how much of that was luck rather than judgement? If the executives had had their wicked way, Barclays would have bought ABN Amro and RBS (at different times, of course...and RBS' difficulties were not solely due to ABN Amro). I saw Barclays as more diversified and with international growth options that were not open to Lloyds, but their scaling down their African operations so that they could 'deconsolidate' hurts that case.

Perhaps the update in February 2018 on their capital management policy for the future will provide some opportunity for a few of us to review where we are. I welcome increased shareholder returns - whether by 'common' dividends as they call them, or special dividends and/or share buybacks - but they cannot do so if it puts their capital strength into question. Moreover, if they need to invest in the business and modernise systems then that investment should be a priority. It's only by generating cashflow and rising profits that dividends can be funded in the long run.

Best wishes


Mark.

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#95233

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » November 13th, 2017, 8:06 am

Looks like Woody is in!

One of the big changes to Woodford’s portfolio has been his U-turn on banks. His long aversion to the sector was last broken in a two-month foray into HSBC (HSBA) in 2014, his first bank buy in over a decade.
“I’ve said consistently since the financial crisis do not listen to what banks tell you about how healthy their balance sheets are,” he explained. “The reason that they’re not lending isn’t because they can’t lend, it’s because they don’t have enough capital.”
Now, he believes they have finally repaired their balance sheets. He began building a large stake in Lloyds (LLOY) in May. He also revealed he’s recently bought stakes in Barclays (BARC) and RBS (RBS).


http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/16 ... glaxo.aspx

Best wishes


Mark.

ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#99433

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » November 28th, 2017, 7:51 am

Something to suck on. Looks like they got the OK in the stress tests (after including capital strength built in 2017), whatever that means:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/financia ... 281117.pdf

Best wishes


Mark.

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Re: Anyone buying Barclays?

#117571

Postby scotia » February 12th, 2018, 12:15 pm

From the BBC today
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43029731
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has charged Barclays Bank PLC with "unlawful financial assistance" related to billions of pounds raised from Qatar in 2008.
The same charges were bought against Barclays PLC in June last year.
The move to charge Barclays Bank as well is significant because it holds the banking licence that allows it to operate in different countries.
So, if Barclays was found guilty, it could lose that crucial licence.


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