Be careful what you wish for in the world of international banking — you might just get it. That is one of the lessons to be learned from the whirlwind of allegations, legal actions and official investigations into the 2008 deal that “saved” British bank Barclays from looming catastrophe at the height of the global financial crisis.
In September of that year, Lehman Brothers, the blue-blood Wall Street bank, had gone bust; Bear Stearns, another venerable New York institution, had been taken over in a fire sale by JP Morgan Chase. Banks around the world were looking anxiously at their balance sheets, and their shareholders’ pockets, for reassurance that they were not the next domino to fall. In the UK, there were already grim noises about Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and Halifax / Bank of Scotland. All were deemed to be vulnerable to the dramatic falls in asset values prompted by the collapse of US sub-prime real estate. In fact, those three were just days away from being effectively taken over by the British government in a £500 billion bailout that saved their historic names but at the price of their independence. They, and the British taxpayer are still feeling the financial repercussions today. Of the two other big names of British banking — HSBC and Barclays — the former was deemed to be relatively insulated against the worst effects of the American collapse. With its big Asian balance sheet and comparatively small US exposure, HSBC could stand on its own.
The same was not true of Barclays. It was already under such pressure that a few months earlier it had agreed a capital injection underwritten by Qatar Holding, a subsidiary of the Arabian Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund, its then Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani, and Temasek, the Singapore wealth fund, in exchange for £4.5 billion of ordinary shares in Barclays. But in the financial hurricane, that was not enough, and a short time later Barclays again went to the Gulf for help: To Qatar, again, and also this time to Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, for a total of £7.3 billion of debt and quasi-equity instruments. It is this second round of financial help that has led to Barclays’ current predicament. The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO), its most aggressive financial investigator, is examining allegations that this deal was accompanied by inducements and loans totaling £2.4 billion to Qatar to compensate the country for the losses it had sustained on the first capital injection. That would be contrary to British law and could result in charges of criminal corporate activity against the bank and senior executives involved in the deals. The bank and executives have denied wrongdoing but the SFO has delayed a decision on whether to proceed with criminal charges until the middle of next month. Simultaneously, Barclays is being sued by PCP Partners, a private equity company involved in the fundraising and run by Amanda Staveley, a well-known financier in Gulf circles. She is claiming that there was deceit in the dealings between Barclays and the Gulf investors and wants £721 million plus interest she says she is owed by the bank. Barclays is believed to be contesting the case. The legal firestorm has come at a sensitive time for UK-Qatar relations. In the post-Brexit uncertainty, Britain does not want to alienate any big investor, but especially Qatar, which has sunk £35 billion into UK assets, including trophies like London’s Shard skyscraper, the iconic department store Harrods and landmark hotels like Claridge’s. Barclays got what it wanted in 2008, but the bank, and the UK might not like the eventual price.