Barclays Bank: Viewing Principles of Finance at Work
Introduction
Banking success is all about sustained profitability through the application of robust scientific investments and trading strategies. The premier position that Barclays enjoyed in the financial industry for over 3 centuries is a validation of the fact that it was built on the strong principles of finance. However, the last couple of decades have seen erosion in its reputation due to the breaching of those very principles.
Barclays Bank is one of the biggest British multi-national banks headquartered in London with a market capitalization of over 21 billion pounds. Its total assets are 1312 billion pounds. The net income and profits are under pressure and have been
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These are the divisions in Barclays that handle markets and involved in trading of stocks, bonds, commodities, forex, interest rates and market indexes. Trading in derivatives is commonly employed by Barclays to hedge risks but we will see that the fund managers in the last decades exposed the bank to risks by indulging in huge speculative investments. Let us investigate a few financial principles now.
Capital Assets Pricing Model (CAPM)
CAPM is a highly acclaimed theory of risk and return for securities in a competitive capital market. The path breaking theory won Sharpe, Markowitz, and Miller the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1990. CAPM establishes the Beta coefficient as a measure of the systematic risk of an asset. The systematic risk is also known as market risk. This risk cannot be eliminated. This systematic risk is uncontrollable. The unsystematic risks include the risk that influences a single company or a small group of company and the same is controllable and can be mitigated through diversification.
Assets with Betas larger than 1.0 are riskier than average. Since they have larger risks, they will also have larger expected revenues. Barclays earlier had a beta of around 2.3 and hence applying CAPM, we could predict that if the market index return raised by 10 percent the returns on Barclays’s shares would tend to rise by 23 % and vice versa. Traditionally the financial industry has a Beta of 1 and the banking sector
Fama and French’s three factor model attempts to explain the variation of stock prices through a multifactor model that includes a size factor and BE/ME factor in addition to the beta risk factor. Fama-French model essentially extended the CAPM (which breaks up cause of variation of stock price into systematic risk which is non-diversifiable and idiosyncratic risk which is diversifiable) by introducing these two additional factors. Fama and French find that stocks with high beta didn’t have consistently higher returns than stocks with low beta and this indicates that beta was not a useful measure under their model. Their model is based on research findings that sensitivity of movements of the size and BE/ME factor constituted risk, and
The banking industry has undergone major upheaval in recent years, largely due to the lingering recessionary environment and increased regulatory environment. Many banks have failed in the face of such tough environmental conditions. These conditions
Given these approximations, the CAPM model would total the risk-free rate and the market risk premium times beta to arrive at a cost of equity of 9.68%, which reflects the investors’ expected return from investing in shares of the company.
In this part of the assignment I am going to be researching the economic factors of Barclays as a business.
CAPM is a model that describes the relationship between risk and expected return, and the formula itself measures the expected return of the portfolio. Mathematically, when beta is higher, meaning the portfolio has more systematic risk (in comparison to the market portfolio), the formula yields a higher expected return for the portfolio (since it is multiplied by the risk premium and is added to the risk free interest rate). This makes sense because the portfolio needs to
Banking success is all about sustained profitability through the application of robust scientific investments and gap management strategies. It is imperative for banks to keep a close watch on the interest rate cycle: if rates are rising they have to ensure that their lending rates rise alongside or before the borrowing rate and vice versa. The premier position that Barclays enjoyed in the financial industry for over 3 centuries is a validation of the fact that it was built on the strong principles of finance. However, the last couple of decades have seen erosion in its reputation due to the breaching of those very principles.
CIBC has focused its core business on retail and business banking, wealth management, and whole sale banking. They have shown a proven track record of providing there customers with financial services and advice through a group upwards of 1100 branches worldwide. Strategies CIBC has portrayed is to continually find new ways to enhance the experience of the client and to stimulate safe revenue growth. CIBC has put emphases on creating deep meaningful relationships with all clients, constantly trying new ways to improve service and sales prospects and to create relationships with new clients while retaining existing clients for a long period of time (CIBC).
Barclays comprehensive portfolio of businesses and expertise in the financial markets attracts me as it is a world of opportunities for a person like me who is full of hunger learn and grow
Barclays also operates in many other countries across the world, where it is a provider of services to multinational companies and financial companies. “The Woolwich” and “Woolwich” are trading names that Barclays operates under, and through these Barclays delivers banking solutions to UK retail and business banking customers. Barclays serves its customers through a variety of channels comprising the branch network, cash machines, telephone banking, and online banking and relationship managers. Key employees =
Investors hold diversified portfolios : One of the assumptions of CAPM model is that investors are holding only portfolios which are subjected to systematic risk , the unsystematic risk can be ignored , therefore the unsystematic risk has been ignored (Lakonishok & Shapiro , 1986)
Using time series regression on the monthly returns we have estimated the beta coefficient for each stock. Using the market model of CAPM i.e., regressing each stock’s monthly returns against the market index (Nifty100) we have estimated individual stock beta’s.
This report compares financial performance of two major banks of UK i.e. HSBC Bank Plc and Barclays Bank Plc on the basis of their Balance sheets and profit and loss accounts for the year 2009. This report also provides SWOT analysis of both banks i.e. HSBC and Barclays Bank Plc and provides an insight into their Banking Strategies.
During the volatile and instable period, the risk was obviously brought to a new level. Morgan’s Private Bank kept their eyes open all the time. I concluded two main aspects.
The purpose of this report is comprehensive quantitative analysis for the financial performance of Barclays Bank. Quantitative analysis is an important method of looking beyond the numbers and understanding the stories they tell. It is quantitative analysis that gives way to qualitative analysis and allows us to gauge the running of a business better. Quantitative analysis is key towards improving our understanding of the relationships that may exist among key financial variables or key factors influencing the performance of a firm. The application of quantitative analysis towards business performance is a key method of identifying problems that may hinder the growth of the business and tackle their root cause.
According to group´s performance from 2002-2006 identifies that Barclays´ performance underpinnings are represented by its strategy of acquiring other banking (such as ABN Amro and Banco Zaragozano) concerns to expand its retail as well as other banking services through representation in international markets as represented by the bank’s presence in 60 countries. This provides Barclays with the means to sell its highly profitable investment banking services as well as be positioned to service the cadre of multinational companies that utilize its diverse banking financial service packages.