Qatar gains 8% in Barclays on slim demand

Barclays' shareholders took up just 19 per cent of new shares in the British bank's recently announced fundraising, which means the bulk of the money will be provided by mostly new "anchor" investors led by Qatar.

Britain's third-biggest bank said last month it had raised £4.5 billion (Dh33bn) from major investors in Qatar, Japan, China, Singapore and elsewhere, and it would give existing shareholders the chance to buy on the same terms.

That allowed them to buy shares at 282 pence each. However, Barclays shares traded below that level for much of the week, reducing the incentive to buy.

Barclays said shareholders had signed up to 267.1 million new shares, which was slightly less than expected, and the remaining 1.14bn new shares would be taken by the "anchor" investors.

Qatari investors will own just over eight per cent of Barclays, after its sovereign wealth fund paid about £1.4bn for a 6.2 per cent stake and a member of its ruling family bought a 1.9 per cent holding for about £432m, based on each anchor investor getting 81 per cent of their allocation.

Other investors who agreed to buy the shares not taken by shareholders included Singapore's Temasek, Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui and state-owned China Development Bank.

CDB has maintained its stake at three per cent stake, Temasek will own between 2.5 per cent and three per cent, and SMFG will own two per cent. Overseas investors will now own over 40 per cent of Barclays' shares, having owned about a third of its shares before the cashcall

Several hedge funds like GLG Partners, Och-Ziff, Lansdowne and CQS also backed the fundraising, highlighting their complex role in the refinancing of Britain's banks.