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Barclays ready to talk about talks
9 Mar 2009Barclays is set to start “talks about talks” with the Treasury today as it calculates whether or not its should take part in the Government's Asset Protection Scheme. Shares in the bank tumbled 6.8p to 58p.
Negotiations with Government officials are likely to be even more tense than the long, drawn-out bargaining with Lloyds which was settled late on Friday.
Chief executive John Varley and his chairman Marcus Agius have made much of the fact that Barclays, which has assets and liabilities of more than £2000 billion, has avoided partial or even full nationalisation by raising capital from existing shareholders and several sovereign wealth funds.
Speculation over how much of its toxic assets Barclays could try to have guaranteed range from £50 billion to £80 billion, but some analysts say this would be far too little.
Reader views (1)
Unfortunately, Barclays is compared with RBS and Lloyds as the share price of Barclays has fallen from a 52 week high of over 712p to 59p as at today. A Pounds 6 billion profit for the year 2008 but distratous fall without much valid reason.
- Prashan Fernando, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 09/03/2009 10:22
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