Barclays’ small shareholders resist £4.5bn cash call

by Gill Montia

Story link: Barclays’ small shareholders resist £4.5bn cash call

Barclays has announced that shareholder take-up of its £4.5 billion fundraising stood at 19%.

The cash call took the form of an “open” rather than a “rights” issue to avoid the problems with volatile share prices encountered by the rights issues of HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland.

However, shareholders have been reluctant to partake because Barclay’s shares have been trading below the issue price of its 1.58 billion new shares.

Small investors had the opportunity to increase their holding by three new shares for every existing 14, at 282p each.

The balance of the fundraising is being made up by the bank’s so called anchor investors which include Qatar Investment Authority, the authority’s chairman, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, China Development Bank and Temasek.

According to a report in the Times, Asian and Middle Eastern investors now own about 16% of Barclays, which is the Britain’s third biggest bank.

At the close of trading yesterday, the group was valued at around £19 billion.