By Lawrence White and Sinead Cruise
LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - Barclays reported a 20percent dip in first-half pretax profits despite improvedreturns in its core business, as the costs of selling andshrinking the bank's unwanted assets in a harsh economicenvironment took its toll on earnings.
The British lender on Friday posted a half-year profitbefore tax of 2 billion pounds ($2.64 billion) compared with 2.6billion pounds for the same period a year ago.
The decline in profit came largely from a loss of 1.9billion pounds in the bank's 'non-core' division of assetsearmarked for sale, as the bank ploughed on with plans todispose of these businesses despite economic uncertaintyfollowing Britain's decision to quit the European Union lastmonth.
Profits from its core businesses including consumer andcommercial lending, credit cards and investment banking, were up19 percent at 2.4 billion pounds.
"Taken together, the picture in the second quarter is one ofstrong and accelerating progress against our strategy. We remainconfident that it is the right plan for Barclays, and see noreason to adjust it, or the pace of delivery, in light of thevote by the UK last month to exit the EU," CEO Jes Staley saidin a statement.
Confidence in Britain's economic outlook has dropped sharplysince voters opted to quit membership of the European Union lastmonth, triggering a fresh bout of pessimism in a sector bruisedby costs of tightened regulation and record low interest rates.($1 = 0.7589 pounds) (Editing by Simon Jessop)
Barclays (BARC)
