(Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer C.S. Venkatakrishnan said the recent surge in his firm’s stock price is “early evidence” that investors are supportive of the company’s push to double down on its home market while still maintaining one of Europe’s last global investment banks. 

Shares in Barclays have surged more than 40% after executives unveiled the strategy at an investor update in February, making it one of the UK’s best performing bank stocks so far this year. 

“Explaining our plan is only the first step,” Venkatakrishnan said at the lender’s annual general meeting of shareholders in Glasgow, Scotland on Thursday. “Quarter after quarter, we need to demonstrate that we are focused on and committed to our plan and the goals of growth, capital return and rebalancing the business.”

In February, Venkatakrishnan said he was revamping the bank’s business structure and vowed to cut billions in costs as part of his efforts to boost profits at the London-based bank. He also promised to return at least £10 billion ($12.5 billion) to investors in the coming years.

Despite the recent rally in shares, Barclays’s stock still trades at a sharp discount to book value and continues to lag most major US and European rivals. The company has long faced questions from investors about the viability of its Wall Street operations because the investment bank consumes more capital than other, higher-returning divisions across the firm.

Executives have acknowledged they will seek to grow other parts of the business in order to improve that balance. The company is now focused on growing in its home market and, to accelerate that pivot, Barclays announced it would acquire much of Tesco Plc’s banking business earlier this year. 

Barclays’s annual meeting was repeatedly interrupted by pro-Palestinian and climate-related protests. The bank has long faced scrutiny for its ties to Israeli defense company Elbit Systems Ltd. Chairman Nigel Higgins acknowledged that Barclays has a “corporate banking” relationship with the company. 

Earlier this year, Barclays pledged to halt the direct financing of new oil and gas projects, and to restrict financing for companies that focus exclusively on fossil-fuel exploration and extraction.

A group of 24 institutional investors with a combined $1.2 trillion of assets argued that recent pledge doesn’t go far enough and called on Barclays to stop financing fracking.

“We recognize the risks of greater environmental and social impacts from fracking and conduct enhanced due diligence on clients engaged in fracking,” Barclays said on its website. 

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