Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (SMBC) has sold half of its shareholding in Barclays for £260 million, after disposing of 84 million shares.
Sumitomo, which is Barclays’ seventh biggest shareholder, sold the bundle of shares in the bank to international institutional investors primarily in Europe and the US at a price of 308.5 pence per share.
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SMBC said the share sale was for the ‘capital efficiency’ of its parent Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.
The Japanese bank bought 169m shares in Barclays at 296p in June 2008 as part of a series of fundraisings during the financial crisis.
SMBC invested alongside investors from Qatar, Singapore and China in its 4.5 billion pound fundraising in June 2008. Barclays has said its deal with Qatar is being investigated by UK and U.S. authorities over certain commercial agreements between the two sides.
Barclays said at the time of the fundraising that Sumitomo’s investment would open the door to closer co-operation between the banks, and in July 2010 they set up a joint private banking venture with Nikko Cordial Securities for wealthy customers in Japan, called SMBC Barclays Wealth Division.
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By GlobalData
