Deutsche Bank described Barclays PLC's (LSE:BARC) third-quarter results as “slightly better than expected”, highlighting that a surprise £500 million buyback and move to quarterly distributions as “helpful confidence indicators” of the bank’s underlying capital generation.
It reckons the quarter represented a modest but meaningful step toward sustained shareholder confidence.
Stronger income and higher costs broadly were offsetting, DB analysts noted, but the uptick is sufficient to support an upgrade to the group’s 2025 return on tangible equity guidance.
Analyst Robert Noble highlighted that revenue performance was solid across divisions, with a 2% beat to consensus, including outperformance in Barclays UK, the Corporate Bank and US Consumer arm, and a 1% upside in the Investment Bank.
Costs, meanwhile, were 2% higher than forecast with a £235 million top-up to motor finance litigation provisions, taking the total to £325 million.
Deutsche Bank said the overall tone from Barclays was constructive, despite isolated headwinds, and noted that the capital return was likely an “acceleration” of full-year plans.
The German bank repeated a 'Buy', which comes with a 380p price target, compared to a share price in London of around 385p.