Qatar cuts stake in Barclays with £510mn stock sale

Qatar cuts stake in Barclays with £510mn stock sale

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is slashing its stake in Barclays, the UK bank that is coming under pressure from investors to overhaul its strategy and improve its performance.

Qatar Holding, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority that helped bail out Barclays during the global financial crisis, launched the sale on Monday of almost 362mn shares, worth about £510mn.

The QIA is Barclays’ second-biggest shareholder, according to Bloomberg data, and the stock sale is expected to reduce its stake from 5.3 per cent to 2.9 per cent.

CS Venkatakrishnan, Barclays’ chief executive, is under pressure to win round investors to a strategic overhaul he is planning to reveal next spring.

Investors are hoping he will reduce Barclays’ reliance on investment banking and return more capital to investors, with a public announcement expected in February.

The Financial Times reported last week that Barclays was exploring a plan to drop thousands of clients at its investment bank as part of the overhaul that is meant to cut £1bn of costs and boost profits.

Barclays executives have met several times this year to thrash out the restructuring, codenamed Minerva after the Roman goddess of wisdom, according