Barclays has sold its loss-making Italian business. It is part of the bank’s drive to focus on its retail, corporate and investment activities in the UK and US. The bank’s retail banking operation in Italy consists of 85 branches employing 564 staff. It will be sold to Mediobanca for a £258million loss. Mediobanca, Italy’s sixth largest, said the deal would accelerate its plan to expand into retail banking, adding 220,000 clients and €2.5billion in residential mortgage loans to its existing CheBanca! operations in Italy. Barclays plans to offload its consumer business and be left only with corporate and investment banking operations in the region. Barclays has already sold its Barclaycard credit card operations in Spain and Portugal to Bancopopular-e and its 62.3% stake in Barclays Africa.
