British bank Barclays is raising £4.5 billion through a discounted share issue in which Qatar Investment Authority and Japan's Sumitomo MitsuiBanking will be major investors.
Barclays also said in a statement that, as previously announced, pre-tax profits in May were well ahead of the same month in 2007.
Barclays has lost more than £2.5 billion on assets hurt by the US sub-prime mortgage crisis and credit crunch and said last week it planned to sell billions of pounds worth of shares to rebuild its capital base.
Some £4 billion will be raised through a placing and open offer of 1.4 billion new shares at 282p, a 9% discount to Tuesday's closing price, on the basis of three new shares for every 14 held. The other £500m will be raised through a placing to Japanese banking group Sumitomo MitsuiBanking of 169 million new shares at 296p, a 4.7% discount.
Qatar Investment Authority and Challenger have agreed to invest up to £1.76 billion and £533m respectively, Barclays said. Challenger represents the interests of Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani, the chairman of Qatar Holding, and his family.
