Barclays 'considering' assets guarantee but no talks yet

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Barclays is widely expected to follow rivals Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group in using the Asset Protection Scheme, but probably to a much lesser extent.

Between them RBS and Lloyds have insured almost £600 billion of bad loans and investments. Barclays could go for just a tenth of that figure.

But despite suggestions to the contrary, Treasury officials and Barclays executives have yet to start thrashing out details. "There will be an engagement," said one source. "But nothing has started yet."

In the meantime Barclays shares shot up today, rising 10.5p to 71.9 as respected banking analyst Jonathan Pierce said he expects them to outperform and set a price target of 110p.

He said the protection-scheme agreements by RBS and Lloyds provide welcome clarity, while believing that their shares are not yet cheap enough to buy.

Barclays is "the most interesting of all the UK banks," Pierce says. But he also feels it will have to strengthen its balance sheet by issuing new capital.

Against the view of many, Pierce reckons Barclays could go the same route as RBS and Lloyds and issue B shares to the Government.

"Barclays is likely to resist Government involvement, economic or otherwise," he says. "But it is reported to be considering the Asset Protection Scheme, which places restrictions on executive compensation even without a capital issue."

That would enable Barclays to avoid triggering clauses in its deals with backers from Qatar and Abu Dhabi, which prevent their holdings being diluted by any new share issues before June.

Any B shares issued to the Government would have a far higher conversion price than today's - even higher, perhaps, than the price the Middle Eastern investors paid.

The Treasury deadline for banks to take advantage of the Asset Protection Scheme is the end of this month. It now looks likely that Barclays could take its discussions right to the wire.