Barclays plans to raise 7.3 billion pounds

LONDON: Barclays PLC, the British banking giant, said it would raise up to £7.3 billion (around $11.8 billion) by issuing securities to investors, especially from the Middle East.

Barclays, among the British lenders hit by the global financial turmoil, said the additional capital would be raised from existing and new strategic and institutional investors.

“The capital would be raised through an issue of £3 billion of reserve capital instruments, with an associated issue of warrants, and an issue of up to £4.3 billion of mandatorily convertible notes,” the bank said.

If the amount of £7.3 billion pounds is raised, the tier one capital ratio of the bank would be raised to 11.3 per cent. On a pro forma basis it stood at 9.1 per cent on June 30.

The bank, it is claimed, would be raising the additional capital from Qatar Holding and Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, among others.

In a separate statement, group chief executive John Varley said: “The financial market environment has continued to be as challenging as any we have experienced.

The strength of our profit performance reflects the conservative stance of our major UK asset portfolios and continued distribution-led growth in retail and commercial banking outside the UK, and in Barclays Capital, strong inflows of client business and good progress on the integration of the acquired Lehman Brothers businesses.”