Business | Banking
Barclays shareholders vote in favour of controversial £7b fundraising
Investors had earlier expressed anger that Middle East clients were getting better terms.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:35 November 24, 2008
London: Barclays investors have voted in favour of the British bank's controversial £7 billion (Dh38.34 billion) fundraising, its Chairman, Marcus Agius, said on Monday.
Addressing a shareholder meeting in London called to vote on the plan, Agius said a count of proxy votes had indicated the capital raising would be passed. A final tally of votes will be released later, he said.
Barclays shares were 9.1 per cent higher at 145.6 pence by 1110 GMT on Monday, while the FTSE 100 share index was up 4.1 per cent.
Barclays had been expected to get the 75 per cent approval it needed for the plan to go ahead. However, there is likely to be a high number of abstentions in protest, analysts and fund managers have said.
Investors have been angered that they were not given first refusal on new capital - known as pre-emption rights - and that Qatar and Abu Dhabi investors are getting more attractive terms than existing shareholders.
Peter Thomas, a private shareholder from London, typified the mood of many of the approximately 200 investors attending the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on the outskirts of London.
No option
"I don't think there's an option [to capital raising] in the turbulence we are seeing, that we have a sound capital base," said Thomas, a retired banker. He said he would hear what management had to say on why it had chosen the structure it had before deciding whether it was right.
Agius told shareholders the lender had opted to raise capital from private investors rather than take part in the UK government's bailout of the banking sector partly because it feared the conditions attached to the bailout might force it to neglect overseas growth.
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