Barclays Wealth, the wealth management arm of the UK-listed banking group Barclays, said its pre-tax profit in the first half of 2009 fell by 59 per cent to £75 million (around $126 million) from £182 million in the same six months of 2008.

The drop was mainly caused by the year-on-year impact of the sale of the closed life assurance business in 2008 and the acquisition of Lehman Brothers' North American businesses (Barclays Wealth Americas), the firm said in a statement.

Barclays has – unlike Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group – avoided the need to ask for UK public funding to strengthen its balance sheet, but the bank has raised capital, including the move to sell its asset management business, Barclays Global Investors, to US-listed BlackRock, for $13 billion. Across the UK banking group as a whole, its pre-tax profit rose to £2.984 billion, a gain of 8 per cent from the same six months a year before.

Among other details for Barclays Wealth’s results, the firm said that excluding the impact of acquisitions and the sale of the closed life business, income was in line with 2008. Growth initiatives were offset by the impact of reduced interest rates on interest income and lower annuity and transactional fee income as a result of falls in equity markets, Barclays said.

Operating expenses, meanwhile, rose by 12 per cent, principally reflecting the net impact of the acquisition and sale. Client assets remained broadly stable from the year end position after adjusting for the impact of exchange rate movements and a small net outflow in Barclays Wealth Americas.

At the end of June, the banking group’s Tier 1 capital ratio stood at 11.7 per cent.

Barclays Wealth logged net fee and commission income of £369 million, up from £349 million in the same six months to 30 June 2008. The wealth management division of Barclays oversaw a total of £134.1 billion of client assets, down from £145.1 billion at the end of December, 2008.

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