Barclays to spend big on private banking build up

GENEVA (Reuters) - UK bank Barclays Plc expects to spend several hundred million pounds expanding its wealth management business in the next three to five years, while increasing the unit's profits, the unit's head said on Tuesday.

Thomas Kalaris, chief executive of Barclays' (BARC.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) wealth management operation, told Reuters' Wealth Management Summit that acquisitions were also an option as the bank seeks to tap into the fast growing private banking industry.

"The investment required is a minimum of several hundred million pounds over a multi-year period. It's primarily investment in people and technology, and neither one of those are inexpensive but fundamental to us building a (platform for future growth)," he told the Summit at Reuters' offices in Geneva.

"We expect to do this build and to continue to grow PBT (pretax profit) at the same time," added Kalaris, who took charge of wealth management at the start of the year with a mandate to aggressively grow the business.

Acquisitions were possible, he said.

"That is certainly included in the set of options we have. We don't believe we have to do something but it's absolutely an option and it's an arrow in the quiver now, not something we have to wait two to three years for."

Barclays' Wealth Management had almost 85 billion pounds ($159.3 billion) in client assets at the end of June and its first-half profit rose to 110 million pounds, up 31 percent from a year earlier.

Barclays' Chief Executive John Varley said in May the bank wanted to treble its annual profits in wealth management to about 500 million pounds.

Kalaris said: "The capacity of the brand is multiples of what it is now", and said his main task is to make greater use of its links to Barclays' investment bank and fund management arms.

"What you will see us do is leveraging our brand in wealth management, we think that there is so much untapped. It really comes down to one thing, and that's your ability to execute," he said.