Barclays

Barclays is a UK-based financial services group, with a very large international presence in Europe, the USA, Africa and Asia. It is engaged primarily in banking, investment banking and investment management. In terms of market capitalisation, Barclays is one of the largest financial services companies in the world. Barclays has been involved in banking for over 300 years and operates in over 60 countries with more than 110,500 permanent employees (including 32,500 at Absa). For the half year ended 30th June 2005, the group achieved a pre-tax profit of £2,690 million, up nine per cent on the same period in 2004. In 2004 Barclays paid over £1 billion in taxes.