LONDON, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- British bank Barclays on Wednesday reported a pre-tax statutory profit of 712 million pounds (1,147 million U.S. dollars) for the first nine months of this year, down 86 percent from a year earlier.
The third quarter saw the bank incur a pre-tax statutory loss of 47 million pounds, compared with a pre-tax profit of 2.4 billion pounds during the same period last year.
The report showed Barclays had reduced exposure to eurozone periphery nations, such as Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, in terms of sovereign debts, corporate assets, resident mortgages and financial institutions transactions. Among them, its sovereign exposure to those countries was cut by 15 percent to 4.8 billion pounds in the third quarter.
On the same day, Barclays also disclosed that it is under two new U.S. regulatory probes, against which the bank said it would defend itself "vigorously."
One is on the bank's financial probity done by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The two regulators are trying to find out whether Barclays' relationship with third parties who help it win or retain businesses are compliant with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Britain's financial regulator and Serious Fraud Office have already started investing into payments between the bank and Qatar Holdings in 2008, when Barclays raised billions of pounds from Qatar to save it from taking a government bailout during the financial crisis.
Barclays declined to comment on whether the new probe from the United States is related to the same transactions.
Another U.S. probe is from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on whether Barclays manipulated power prices in western regions of the United States from late 2006 to 2008.
Price of Barclays shares at London stock market dropped up to 4.5 percent in the morning trade on Wednesday.
Barclays was fined 450 million U.S. dollars earlier this year by the U.S. and British regulators for trying to manipulate Libor and Euribor rates, which forced its former Chief Executive Bob Diamond to step down. (1 pound = 1.61 U.S. dollars)
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