By Sabela Ojea


Barclays PLC reported Wednesday a rise in fourth-quarter pretax profit that beat market views, and said it has appointed Anna Cross as its new finance director.

The U.K. bank, which also said that it intends to launch a share buyback program of up to 1 billion pounds ($1.36 billion), posted a pretax profit for the period of GBP1.47 billion compared with GBP646 million a year earlier. Pretax profit was expected to reach GBP1.17 billion, according to the lender's compiled consensus.

The bank said Tushar Morzaria will retire from the role of finance director and as an executive director of Barclays from April 22. Ms. Cross, who is currently the bank's deputy group finance director, will take over the following day.

The FTSE 100 listed bank's net profit rose to GBP1.12 billion from GBP220 million for the year-earlier period. It was expected to close the quarter with a net profit of GBP643 million, taken from Barclays's compiled forecasts.

Total operating expenses stood at GBP3.73 billion, below market views of total costs of GBP3.80 billion and up from costs of GBP3.45 billion for the fourth quarter of 2020.

Barclays said costs for 2022 are expected to be modestly higher than GBP12 billion, citing inflationary pressures and planned investments.

Total income increased to GBP5.16 billion from GBP4.94 billion for the fourth quarter of 2020, the bank added. It was anticipated to increase to GBP5.12 billion, according to the bank's compiled forecasts.

The bank closed the quarter with a common equity Tier 1 ratio--a key measure of balance-sheet strength--of 15.1%. It was expected to end the period with a ratio of 15.2%.

The board declared a total dividend of 6.0 pence a share, up from 1.0 pence for 2020.


Write to Sabela Ojea at sabela.ojea@wsj.com; @sabelaojeaguix


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-23-22 0314ET