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| In Section 1: |   |
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| Introduction Chairman's Statement Group Chief Executive's Statement Financial Performance Group Finance Director The Leadership Team |
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Although we continue to seek out value creating non-organic
opportunities in selected European markets, we will remain
rigorous in applying the disciplines of value based management
in analysing potential targets. We will only consider transactions
that meet our value based metrics. In our drive to become a high performance organisation we have improved the calibre of human capital in key jobs across the Group and increased the differentiation in reward and recognition. We have directed substantial amounts of investment into training and development through initiatives such as the launch of Barclays University. We have increased focus on our Equality and Diversity programme which is potentially such a fruitful source of human capital. In all of these endeavours we have been greatly supported by our trade union partners in UNIFI.  Lastly, I should touch on the outlook. The macro-economic indicators remain ambiguous. However, I am if anything a bit more optimistic about 2003 than I was about 2002. We believe that the UK may perform slightly better than it did in 2002. This should provide a relatively stable backdrop against which we can grow our business in the UK. The US entered 2003 in moderately better shape than it entered 2002. However, the Eurozone presents a more subdued picture. Germany faces a series of intractable difficulties and since Germany represents one third of the Eurozone, the Eurozone as a whole is likely to continue to lag behind the UK and US. Japan shows no sign of addressing its difficulties, which require structural reform. All this adds up to a UK domestic economy likely to perform well relative to the rest of Europe, but an international economy which, in the aggregate, looks unlikely to be significantly more expansionary than last year. Whatever the out-turn, you can expect us to manage our business aggressively and proactively, adjusting to emerging conditions while powering ahead with our strategy. I remain optimistic about the health of the industry and, in particular, Barclays. Matthew W. Barrett Group Chief Executive |
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