British banking giant Barclays PLC might report its fourth-quarter earnings early in an attempt to quiet rumors that the bank is in trouble.
Barclays, which this week completed its acquisition of the US operations of bankrupt Lehman Brothers, has seen its shares tumble 85 percent over the past month amid market chatter that it’s harboring a massive loss and could be taken over by the British government.
In a bid to dispel those rumors, bank executives, led by Barclays President Robert Diamond, told employees in a conference call on Thursday that the bank is considering moving up the date of its earnings to prove to the market that it’s not teetering.
A source said Barclays had originally planned to release earnings around Feb. 17.
During that conference call, Diamond told employees that Barclays has adequate capital and will beat analysts’ estimates when it reports.
Barclays has told Wall Street that its 2008 profit will exceed analysts’ projections of 5.3 billion pounds ($7.3 billion).
The bank has gotten caught up in a tsunami of bad news buffeting the British financial system as several financial institutions, including Royal Bank of Scotland, stumble amid massive losses and could be nationalized.
Diamond has spoken to staffers via company-wide conferences to address worries over the bank’s performance and staff cuts resulting from downsizing as it integrates operations with Lehman, which it wrapped up Thursday. mark.decambre@nypost.com