{"id":228559,"date":"2018-03-01T08:38:54","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T06:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=228559"},"modified":"2018-03-01T08:38:54","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T06:38:54","slug":"barclays-africa-to-change-its-name-to-absa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/228559\/barclays-africa-to-change-its-name-to-absa\/","title":{"rendered":"Barclays Africa to change its name to Absa"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>Barclays Africa Group advised its shareholders in a note on Thursday of its intention to change its name from Barclays Africa Group Limited to Absa Group Limited, subject to regulatory and shareholders\u2019 approval.<\/p>\n<p>The name change will be effective from 30 May 2018, the bank said.<\/p>\n<p>In June last year, Barclays Africa Group announced that it had agreed terms for operational separation with UK-based Barclays PLC, after the latter said it would reduce its shareholding in Barclays Africa.<\/p>\n<p>UK-based Barclays PLC announced on 1 March 2016 that it intended to sell the majority of its shareholding in Barclays Africa over a period of two to three years.<\/p>\n<p>Also on Thursday, the bank reported a 4% rise in profit for the year ended December 2017. Income grew to R73.3 billion, from R72.4 billion in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Additional salient features:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Normalised diluted Headline earnings per share (HEPS) grew 4% to 1 837.7 cents, while\u00a0 diluted IFRS HEPS including R1.9 billion of separation costs decreased 4% to 1 716.5 cents.<\/li>\n<li>Declared a 4% higher full year dividend per share (DPS) of 1070 cents.<\/li>\n<li>South Africa Banking headline earnings grew 4% to R12.2 billion, Rest of Africa Banking rose 7% to R3.0 billion and Wealth, Investment Management and Insurance (WIMI) decreased 8% to R1.2 billion.<\/li>\n<li>Normalised return on equity (RoE) declined slightly to 16.4% and return on assets (RoA) improved to 1.38%.<\/li>\n<li>Normalised revenue grew 1% to R72.9 billion and operating expenses rose 4% to R41.4 billion.<\/li>\n<li>On a constant currency basis normalised revenue grew 3% and diluted HEPS increased 7%.<\/li>\n<li>Normalised pre-provision profit declined 3% to R31.5 billion.<\/li>\n<li>Credit impairments fell 20% to R7 billion, resulting in a 0.87% credit loss ratio from 1.08%.<\/li>\n<li>Normalised net asset value (NAV) per share rose 5% to 11 550 cents.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Looking ahead, chief executive, Maria Ramos said: &#8220;In South Africa we expect a modest improvement in real GDP growth to 1.4% in 2018, with upside potential\u00a0 from fixed investment, a rebound in confidence and strong global growth, although fiscal consolidation remains a concern and there is downside risk for credit ratings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We believe the South African Reserve Bank will keep\u00a0 interest rates on hold for some time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our latest forecast indicates slightly better GDP growth of 5.8% in our markets in the rest of Africa, with further monetary policy easing in a number of countries. At current exchange rates the rand could weigh on our rest of Africa reported growth again in 2018.&#8221;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/188657\/barclays-africa-sees-7-half-year-profit-on-back-of-strong-absa-growth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Barclays Africa half-year profit up 7% on Absa growth<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barclays Africa Group advised its shareholders in a note on Thursday of its intention to change its name from Barclays Africa Group Limited to Absa Group Limited, subject to regulatory and shareholders\u2019 approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":114730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[29,7441,26],"class_list":["post-228559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-absa","tag-barclays-africa","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228559"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228581,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228559\/revisions\/228581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}