Barclays sells non-core Spanish insurance assets

Barclays has sold a Spanish life savings insurance portfolio to VidaCaixa, as the lender continues to make progress in winding down its non-core assets.

A total of 25,000 insurance policies and around €625m of insurance liabilities and assets have been transferred from Barclays to the Spanish company, which is owned by CaixaBank, with no further financial terms of the deal disclosed.

It is the latest in a series of sales by Barclays to the Spanish lender, with the UK bank’s Spanish pension assets and liabilities and life risk insurance portfolio sold to VidaCaixa last year and its Spanish retail operations sold to CaixaBank in 2015.

The sale will reduce risk-weighted assets in Barclays’ non-core unit by £200m.

Barclays’ non-core unit was set up in 2014 to sell off assets that the lender no longer considered part of its main business. Last week the bank said it now plans to close the unit in June this year, six months ahead of schedule.

Harry Harrison, head of Barclays non-core, said:

We continue to be focused on releasing capital and simplifying our portfolio as we move towards closing Barclays Non-Core at the end of June. The completion of this transaction continues our momentum and reflects the significant work our team has undertaken to make BVP (Barclays Vida y Pensiones) assets an attractive proposition for VidaCaixa.

Barclays last week reported it had swung from a net loss of £394m in 2015 to a net profit of £1.6bn for last year, ending a two-year lossmaking streak.