Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc, the U.K.’s second largest bank, said third-quarter net profit fell 54 percent as impairment charges climbed.

Net income fell to 1.08 billion pounds ($1.8 billion) from 2.33 billion pounds in the year-earlier period, the London-based bank said today in a statement.

Impairments for the full year are “expected to be around the bottom end of the previously referenced 2009 consensus range of 9 billion pounds to 9.6 billion pounds” made in August, the bank said today. The nine month impairment figure of 6.2 billion pounds was “significantly above” the year-earlier period, the bank said. The bank fell in London trading.

Barclays avoided a government bailout last year, instead receiving more than 5 billion pounds of capital from Middle Eastern investors. Britain’s economy shrank 0.4 percent in the third quarter, sending the number of people claiming jobless benefits to the highest since 1997 in September. That helped drive personal insolvencies in England and Wales to a record in the third quarter.

Barclays last week said third-quarter pretax profit was “consistent with the run-rate for the first half,” of about 2.9 billion pounds. Pretax profit declined 44 percent to 1.6 billion pounds in the three months to Sept. 30, from 2.84 billion pounds. That was more than the 1.5 billion-pound estimate of Ian Gordon, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas.

October Trading

October trading was “generally consistent with the overall trend for the first nine months of the year,” Barclays said.

Investment banking and investment management pretax profit declined 38 percent to 1.97 billion pounds in the nine months to Sept. 30, the bank said.

Barclays declined 3.2 percent to 332 pence at 10:06 a.m., paring its advance this year to 116 percent.

The bank has sold about 80 percent of its Barclays Global Investors unit to BlackRock Inc. for about $14.2 billion to increase capital. In September, the bank agreed to sell $12.3 billion of debt to Protium Finance LP, a fund run by former executives, to reduce losses linked to credit market volatility.

Barclays increased its dependence on investment banking with the acquisition of the North American units of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. last year. The bank is also hiring more than 750 people in Europe and Asia this year. President Robert Diamond, 58, gained control of commercial banking last week, leading to the departure of retail and commercial banking head Frits Seegers.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jon Menon in London at jmenon1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 10, 2009 05:07 EST