By William Mills
Yesterday 12th February saw the publication of Barclays PLC’s annual results, and how confusing….
We had the adjusted figures telling us the profit had increased to £7,048m for the year, whereas the statutory profit had nosed dived to £246m from £5,879m from a year ago.
So what do we believe? Firstly we need to check out the ex-dividend date before deciding whether to sell. Barclays pays four dividends a year and over half of this is paid in March. Some 3.5p per share out of a total of 6.5p for the year.
But when is the ex-dividend date? I tried three different brokers sites but they still had last year’s figures. Then in Barclays note seven to the Financial Statements on page 84 it gives the date as 22nd February 2013.
It’s ten days away and a lot can happen to a share price in that time. The earnings per share in note six have gone from 25.1p per share last time to a loss of 8.5p for the year ended 31 December 2012.
Most brokers publish the statutory figures in their comparison tables. In this case doesn’t make good reading….
Barclays ‘turned a blind eye’ before and after the financial crisis when its traders manipulated Libor to boost profits, it was claimed.