31 Oct 2008
Barclays raise £7.3 billion from Arab investors.
Barclays have decided to keep their independence from the politicians & turned away from government refinance & its constraints.
Instead they have relinquished one third of ownership to investors from the Middle East with Qatar & Abu Dhabi being the major providers of the £7.3 billion.
Whilst retaining two thirds of Barclays they have complied with regulators whilst allowing the bank to keep its full independence & with it operational control.
This freedom could allow Barclays far more latitude than the rest of the British banks who seem to have succumbed to the first offer from government & with it allowed politicians & public servants into yet another area they no nothing about, although it may be the panacea for the feared redundancies expected in the financial sector after all government & the public sector seem to have a multiple of three to every one job in the private sector.
The move by Barclays could be the saviour of independent banking in the UK, & perhaps will prevent political handcuffs being applied to the finance sector as Barclays independence will allow them much more freedom to react in a prompt manner to client & market demands. Those who have taken the political offer will now have to be allowed the same freedom to enable them to compete with the banks who have managed to keep their independence from political & public sector interference.
Some claim the directors have taken the Middle East route as it enables them to continue to pay themselves large bonuses, but if large bonuses keep politicians & their underlings out of the private sector then it is a price worth paying.
Perhaps if politicians were or any use at their own job many failures in the private sector would never occur, after all the FSA are advising the government on what to do yet were at fault for the debacle of the sub prime & overseas lending, as experts warned them well in advance of the dangers.
However Barclays shares did fall as worries the funding is more expensive than the government method. |
