Britain's third biggest bank Barclays said its profits in the first quarter fell from a year earlier after its investment bank and fund management arms were hit by tough financial market conditions.
Barclays said profits at Barclays Capital and Barclays Global Investors were well below the strong profits of a year ago, but it said both businesses were profitable.
In comments released ahead of the bank's annual shareholder meeting today, Barclays CEO John Varley said current market turbulence meant it was a time for banks to have strong capital ratios.
Speculation has mounted this week that Barclays will be forced to announce new big writedowns and may launch a rights issue to rebuild capital, after its UK rival Royal Bank of Scotland tapped investors for a record £12 billion sterling after taking more big hits on toxic assets.
Barclays did not comment on writedowns and said the bank will release a full first quarter trading statement next month as planned.
It wrote down the value of its risky assets by £1.6 billion last year, but capital markets deteriorated sharply in March.
Varley said first quarter profits in its global retail and commercial banking unit were ahead of 2007. Its private banking unit Barclays Wealth was profitable in the quarter, it said.
