Barclays PLC is deepening its focus on the U.K. consumer market through its acquisition of Tesco's retail banking arm, while simultaneously selling off consumer finance businesses in Germany and Italy to simplify its operations.
The bank completed its acquisition of Tesco's retail banking business for approximately 600 million British Pounds, according to a company filing.
The deal brought in roughly 8.4 billion British Pounds in unsecured lending balances and 6.8 billion British Pounds in customer deposits.
The acquisition is part of a 10-year strategic partnership to offer Tesco-branded financial services, the company said.
Barclays Group Chief Executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan called the acquisition "an important step in increasing our investment in the UK."
In line with its strategy to simplify, Barclays also completed the sale of its German consumer finance business to BAWAG Group.
The company said the sale released approximately 4.0 billion euros in risk-weighted assets.
Additionally, the bank announced the disposal of its performing Italian mortgage portfolio, valued at around 3.3 billion euros.
Barclays said the transaction was expected to be broadly neutral to its core capital ratio.
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