Barclays Investment Banking Profit Beats Analyst Estimates

Barclays Plc, the first U.K. bank to report first-quarter results, posted a bigger-than-estimated gain in investment banking profit and said it’s on track to meet its target for cost cuts.

Pretax profit at the securities unit, which accounts for more than half of the bank’s earnings, rose 11 percent to 1.32 billion pounds ($2 billion), the London-based lender said in a statement today. That beat the 1.25 billion-pound median estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Chief Executive Officer Antony Jenkins told reporters today the lender made a “strong start” to its cost-reduction plan and is on target to cut 1.7 billion pounds of expenses by 2015.