Shares in Barclays were the biggest fallers in early trading, and later the second-biggest faller on the FTSE 100, down 7p, or 2.3%, at 297p, as a Middle East investor who pumped billions of pounds into Barclays during the financial crisis sold a chunk of his holding.
Japanese investment bank Nomura has sold 220m shares in the UK bank as a result of an intricate hedging exercise on behalf of Abu Dhabi's Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, one of the investors who helped bail out the bank during the October 2008 crisis.
His PCP Gulf Invest 3 vehicle still retains a beneficial interest in 6.3% of the bank's shares but has used Nomura to lock in his gains caused by the near-doubling the share price since he bought into the bank. The deal also gives Barclays a slight boost to its capital base, of around £260m, because the Sheik is exercising warrants he owns in the bank as part of the hedging strategy.
