BARCLAYS has offloaded its loss-making Italian business as part of its drive to sell off non-core assets.
The bank said on Tuesday that its retail banking operation, consisting of 85 branches employing 564 staff, would be sold to Mediobanca at a £258 million loss.
Barclays will pay a 240.5 million euro dowry to Mediobanca, which has 220,000 customers, to take the business off its hands.
Chief executive Jes Staley said: "Accelerating the rundown of Barclays non-core is a key part of our strategy to close the gap between the group's returns and those in our strong core business."
The move is part of the lender's strategy of focusing on its core UK and US banking operations by closing its hinterland businesses.
The overhaul has seen the lender sell its Barclaycard credit card operations in Spain and Portugal to Bancopopular-e and sell down its 62.3% stake in Barclays Africa.
Last week, the bank sold its risk analytics and index unit to Bloomberg for about £615 million.
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