Barclays profit drops after nearly $2 billion writedown : US Business

LONDON (Reuters) - British bank Barclays said profits fell in the first quarter after it took a 1 billion pound ($1.95 billion) writedown on assets tarnished by the credit crunch.

Britain's third-biggest bank said on Thursday the writedown for its investment bank arm Barclays Capital was net of a 700 million pound gain on the fair valuation of debt it carries on its own books. The writedown was less than the hit taken by many other banks.

It expects its core tier 1 capital ratio to be slightly lower at the end of June than the 5.1 percent it reported at the end of 2007, but intends to lift it to its 5.25 percent target "in time."

The bank had already said last month its first quarter profits would fall from a year ago as earnings at BarCap and its Barclays Global Investors fund management unit had been hit by financial market turmoil, but it has not disclosed the extent of the fall.

It said BarCap stayed profitable in the first four months of the year, despite in April reversing 500 million pounds of the gains it made on the valuation of the debt it carried.

The bank's profits in April, excluding BarCap, were above a year ago, it said.

(Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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