Barclays shares on the rise despite 25% drop in profits

Restructuring continues

Barclays shares jumped in early morning trading despite the bank reporting a 25% fall in Q1 pre-tax profits, as investors welcomed its plan to accelerate the sale of its French operations.

The bank was the FTSE 100's biggest riser as markets opened, as it nnounced it would be speeding up the sale of some of its French businesses. Barclays revealed that specialist European financial services firm AnaCap has entered into negotiations to acquire the bank's French retail banking and wealth divisions. Its shares rose 4% on the back of this announcement, but fell back slgihtly to trade 1.3% higher, at 176p by 11am.  The rise comes despite the firm also announcing this morning it had missed its earning forecast for the first quarter of the year. Profits in Q1 were £793m,...