Barclays (BCS.US) Q4 earnings exceeded expectations, vowing to return over 15 billion to shareholders.

Barclays PLC Sponsored ADR (BCS.US) announced its fourth-quarter financial report on Tuesday as part of its ongoing efforts to advance its long-term strategy, significantly reduce costs, and enhance profitability. The bank has committed to returning at least 15 billion (approximately $20.5 billion) in capital to shareholders by 2028 through dividends and buybacks. The financial report shows that Barclays' pre-tax profit for the fourth quarter reached 1.9 billion, higher than the 1.7 billion in the same period last year and exceeding the market consensus expectation of 1.72 billion provided by Barclays. For the full year 2025, the bank's pre-tax profit was 9.1 billion, higher than the expected 9.01 billion and exceeding the 8.1 billion in 2024; total revenue for the year increased to 29.14 billion, also surpassing expectations and higher than the 26.79 billion in 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the fixed income trading department's revenue increased by 9.6% year-on-year, reaching 1.02 billion, exceeding expectations; the equities trading department's revenue increased by 16% year-on-year to 703 million. Both achieved their best fourth quarter performance since Barclays adjusted its reporting structure in 2016. However, the investment banking division's revenue was 606 million, roughly flat compared to the same period last year, slightly below market expectations. According to the announcement, the bank achieved a tangible equity return of 11.3% in 2025 and has set a new target to increase this key profitability metric to over 14% by 2028. To achieve this goal, Barclays plans to further achieve approximately 2 billion in "efficiency savings" on top of the 700 million cost reduction completed last year. Based on the strong performance in the fourth quarter exceeding expectations, Barclays announced a 1 billion share buyback plan. The strong performance in this quarter was mainly due to the excellent performance of the trading business. "The progress over the past two years has laid a solid foundation for future delivery," said Group Chief Executive Venkataraman. "We will further invest to improve the customer experience and deepen customer relationships, while leveraging new technologies including artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency, build leading businesses in segmented markets, and drive further growth." It is worth noting that the bank had previously implemented a significant cost reduction and restructuring plan in 2024, promising to return 10 billion to shareholders by 2026 and reduce costs by 2 billion. In recent years, although Barclays has focused more capital on developing its UK domestic business and reduced capital investment in investment banking, trading and advisory business still contribute most of its revenue.