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October 14, 2008
Barclays Plans to Raise More Than 6.5 Billion Pounds
Bloomberg.com
By Ambereen Choudhury
Though Barclays Bank was originally on the list of banks to receive assistance from the British central bank, yesterday Barclays announced that it hoped to raise the capital it needs through the private market:
Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc, the U.K.'s second-biggest bank, plans to sell more than 6.5 billion pounds ($11 billion) of shares to private investors without turning to the government for help, and said it won't pay a final dividend for 2008.
"The board expects that the additional capital will be raised from investors without calling on the government funding which has been offered to U.K. banks,'' the London-based bank said in a statement today.
...
Barclays will issue preference shares to raise 3 billion pounds by Dec. 31, and will sell ordinary stock to raise about 600 million pounds to fund the purchase of some of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s assets. The bank will also issue new ordinary shares to raise a further 3 billion pounds by March 31, 2009.
NoLandGrab: The condition of Barclays Bank has been of interest to Atlantic Yards watchdogs because, in January 2007, the bank signed a $400-million arena-naming-rights deal with Bruce Ratner.
Barclays can still walk away from the deal if Ratner is unable to complete financing by the end of November.
Will balance-sheet triage cause Barclays to bail on the arena deal or will Barclays execs feel that they need the branding boost for the Lehman Brothers acquisitions?
Stay tuned...
Posted by lumi at October 14, 2008 4:47 AM