By Lawrence White and Sinead Cruise
LONDON (Reuters) - A corporate makeover at Barclays (BARC.L) under CEO Jess Staley showed signs of paying off on Friday as the British bank reported an improved performance in its key businesses, helping send its shares up more than 8 percent.
Staley in March set out a strategy to simplify the bank's structure and seek higher shareholder returns through the sale of the bulk of its Africa business and other assets, becoming a "transatlantic" bank focused on the United States and Britain.
It said on Friday profits from its core businesses, including consumer and commercial lending, credit cards and investment banking, rose 19 percent to 2.4 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) in the first half.
Group pretax profit fell 21 percent to 2 billion pounds, largely due to a loss of 1.9 billion on the non-core assets, which the bank has recommitted to offload, despite prospects of a possible economic downturn following Britain's vote to quit the European Union.
"Our assessment is that the Brexit vote in the UK will have no effect on our ability to run down Non-Core at an accelerated pace and we therefore remain confident in reiterating our goal of closing Non-Core in 2017," Staley told analysts.
The bank booked a 372 million pound impairment on the French retail banking business it is in talks to sell to AnaCap Financial Partners.
Other assets earmarked for sale include its Barclaycard consumer payments business in Spain and Portugal as well as almost all of its stake in its Africa unit. It has already sold its Asia wealth operations and Italian banking business.
"These are reassuringly good numbers," Brian Cullen, investment manager at S.W. Mitchell Capital, which owns Barclays shares, told Reuters. "We like the positive tone and the fact that they have resisted temptation to blame Brexit for changes in guidance."
Shares were trading up 8.6 percent at 159 pence by 1245 GMT (8:45 a.m. ET).
ON COURSE TO DELIVER
Confidence in Britain's economic outlook has dropped sharply since voters opted to leave the EU on June 23, triggering a fresh bout of pessimism in a sector bruised by the costs of tighter regulation, restructuring and record low interest rates.
But Staley said the bank had lent 2 billion pounds of mortgages to UK homebuyers since the Brexit vote, 8 percent more than the same period last year.
Barclays finance director Tushar Morzaria said the bank had no plans to accelerate branch closures in Britain, in contrast to Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) which on Thursday announced a fresh 200 closures.