Banking crisis? Well, banks continue to post profits. Look at Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS), which today reported a $3.15 billion profit for the first half of 2009.
Why the growth? Interestingly enough, Barclays got a big boost from its investment banking division (which is focused on mergers & acquisitions, public offerings and capital raises). Keep in mind that the company purchased the U.S. operations of Lehman Brothers.
And the strength is no fluke. Other major banks -- such as Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) -- also posted strong results with investment banking.
Now, Barclays still has major issues, especially with bad loans. In fact, the company saw its impairments spike 86% to 4.56 billion pounds.
To deal with the problems, Barclays has been aggressive with its restructuring. For example, in June the company struck a $13.5 billion deal with BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) for the Barclays Global Investors unit.
At the same time, Barclays wants to continue to focus on investment banking. To this end, the company plans to hire up to 1,000 new people to handle M&A and capital raising assignments. Although, the main focus will be on the Asian markets.
In morning trading, the shares of Barclays were up 5.84% to $21.74.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The IPO Primer and The Complete M&A Handbook
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