According to the IMF's World Economic Outlook update in April 2009, the UK economy will contract by 4.1% in 2009. Considering this bleak outlook, we expect overall lending growth to moderate during the year. However this will be partially offset by the firm's efforts to expand in emerging markets. Consequently, although loan growth in traditional markets is expected to be slow, we expect Net Interest Income (NII) to grow robustly over our investment horizon....

On 08 June 2009 Barclays PLC (Barclays) confirmed that it is in discussion with BlackRock Inc. (BlackRock), and other bidders, to sell its Barclays Global Investors (BGI) division in order to raise funds to improve its capital position. While the sale does allay our fears regarding the bank's ability to absorb increasing impairment charges, and looks to be a positive short term measure, in the…

Barclays PLC's (Barclays) top-line grew robustly in 1Q 09, although rising costs and a jump in impairment charges limited the rise in profit. We remain concerned about dislocation in credit markets and its adverse impact on trading income, as well as growth in impairment charges, which are likely to continue dampening profits over our investment horizon. Therefore, although the target price derived in our last update report does…