Barclays shares fell in morning trade today after one of the bank's largest shareholders Qatar Holding moved to sell around £510m of its stock, cutting back on its crisis-era investment in the bank.
The sale was set to price at 141 pence per share as of last night, which was a discount of about 1.4% to Barclays' closing share price on Monday, one of the banks acting on the deal said.
Reuters could not immediately establish the percentage size of the stake sold. Barclays declined to comment.
Qatar Investment Authority, the state sovereign wealth fund which owns Qatar Holding, did not respond to a request for comment.
The share sale comes as Barclays embarks on a shake-up to cut costs and revive its share price, which has halved since Qatar first invested in 2008. It owned nearly 7% of Barclays in 2012.
Investors are parsing what the Qatari move means for Barclays CEO CS Venkatakrishnan and his executive team, just weeks before they are expected to unveil a new strategy to restore the bank's flagging fortunes.
One institutional shareholder in Barclays told Reuters that the timing looked odd ahead of the bank's strategy update in February, but cautioned that investors often trade for reasons not necessarily related to the underlying performance of the stock in question.
Qatar became Barclays' largest shareholder during the 2008 financial crisis when it injected £4 billion into the UK bank in a deal that helped avert a taxpayer bailout.
Britain's financial watchdog later fined Barclays $55m for fees paid to Qatari entities in the 2008 fundraising, which Barclays said it would appeal.
Under CEO Vekatakrishnan, Barclays this year began working on plans to save as much as £1 billion, which could involve cutting as many as 2,000 jobs, mainly in its back office, Reuters reported last month.
It is also selling its consumer finance unit in Germany and considering selling a stake in its domestic merchant services business, Reuters previously reported.
Barclays has also expressed interest in acquiring Tesco's banking business.
