Foreign investors increase Barclays stakes

Source: Exec Digital UK

Date :18/07/2008 08:55:10

Existing shareholders snub £4.5 billion capital raising, leaving stock with new Asian and Middle Eastern investors.

Asian and Middle East investors now own about 16 percent of Barclays Bank, after the majority of shareholders snubbed a new shares offer.

Investors took up just 19 percent of the 1.5 billion new shares on offer leaving more than 80 percent with the sovereign wealth funds and Asian banks that had underwritten the cash call.

The Qatar Investment Authority will hold six percent of Barclays, with 2.1 percent going to Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

China Development Bank, an existing shareholder in Barclays, will retain its 3.1 percent share in the bank.

Temasek, the Singaporean wealth fund, will take its stake from about two percent to between 2.5 percent and three percent.