LONDON (Alliance News) - Barclays PLC on Friday said it has continued with its effort to speed up the rundown of its division of unwanted assets, with the completed sale and transfer of its Spanish pension assets and liabilities to Vidacaixa, SAU de Seguros y Reaseguros, a member of the Barcelona-based Caixa Group.
In a statement, Barclays Bank PLC said 35,000 customers and about EUR350 million of assets under management will transfer to the buyer as part of the agreement. The sale will help to reduce costs and risky assets, Barclays said. Neither party will be disclosing the financial terms of the deal.
"This is another positive step in reducing the cost, operational risk and capital allocation within Barclays Non-Core, swiftly following the sale of our Italian insurance business last week. We are making good progress and continue to focus on our target of reducing RWAs in Barclays Non-Core to GBP20 billion by the end of 2017," Harry Harrison, co-head of Barclays Non-Core, said in a statement.
Barclays Vida y Pensiones CompañÃa de Seguros (BVP) provides life insurance and pension products in Spain, Italy and Portugal. BVP had already sold its Portuguese insurance business to Bankinter Seguros de Vida, completed in April, and its Italian life insurance business to CNP Assurances, announced earlier in June.
Barclays completed the sale of its Spanish retail bank to CaixaBank SA in January 2015, and announced the proposed sale of its Barclaycard consumer payments business in Spain and Portugal to Bancopopular-e in April. Barclays still operates corporate and investment banking activities in Spain.
Shares in Barclays were down 3.3% at 170.30 pence Friday.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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Barclays (BARC)
