LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - British bank Barclays said first-quarter profit fell a quarter from a year ago, as ahefty bill for the cost of a restructuring plan by its new chiefexecutive offset a solid performance by its investment bank.
Adjusted pretax profit for the three months through Marchdropped to 1.79 billion pounds ($2.7 billion) from 2.4 billion ayear ago, just below a mean forecast of 1.85 billion fromanalysts polled by the company.
Profits were dented by a 514 million pound charge to covercosts associated with "Project Transform", CEO Antony Jenkins'plan to axe 3,700 jobs, prune the investment bank and reform thebank's culture after a series of scandals.
The bank said it expects another 500 million pounds ofcharges related to the restructuring this year.
Jenkins is attempting to distance Britain's third-biggestbank from the aggressive, high-risk culture championed by hispredecessor Bob Diamond, who left in July after Barclays wasfined $450 million for rigging Libor interest rates.
Most of the costs incurred so far were in its Europeanoperations, where it has cut almost 2,000 jobs, and theinvestment bank, where it is axing 1,800.
The investment bank made a profit of 1.3 billion pounds inthe first quarter, up 11 percent on the year and accounting foralmost three-quarters of group profit.
Investment bank income rose 1 percent on the year to 3.5billion pounds, higher than the 3.3 billion expected byanalysts, as growth in equities and advisory income offset afall in fixed income, currency and commodities income.
The bank said the good start to the year had continued intothe second quarter across its businesses.