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A mystery 24 hour-plus delay in the $13.5 billion (£8.2 billion) sale of fund manager Barclays Global Investors was explained today as it emerged British socialite financier Amanda Staveley's $2.8 billion offer to back the deal had been turned down by the US buyer BlackRock.
Staveley, 36, is known for her contacts with sovereign wealth funds and rich individuals across the Gulf states.
In recent months she has brokered the Abu Dhabi takeover of Manchester City and the same state's Sheikh Mansour's £3.5 billion investment in Barclays last autumn which enabled it to avoid a UK Government bailout.
BlackRock had been one of the lead potential buyers for BGI since early May this year and Staveley had held several conversations with its founder and chief executive Larry Fink over providing money for the deal.
Fink had also met several key investors in the Gulf region.
Unusually Staveley intended to use her firm PCP Capital Partners as the principal investor in the BlackRock deal rather than act as broker to other investors.
In that way her backers would receive a degree of anonymity.
It was well-flagged in the press that BlackRock needed outside backing for the deal and that much of it would come from the Middle East.
But on Tuesday 9 June, the day before BlackRock and Barclays planned to announce the deal, BlackRock's advisers visited Staveley in the Gulf to collect commitment letters, legally-binding contracts committing investors to a deal.
At this point it appears that BlackRock baulked at the fact that the commitments came not direct from sovereign wealth funds or individuals but from a special purpose vehicle created by Staveley.
"The money was in place. She thought the deal was done," said a source close to the investment vehicle. "Fink knew who the investors behind the vehicle were."
But BlackRock wanted to know more and called in extra bankers to assess Staveley's backers, who were primarily wealthy Arab individuals.
She also planned to take a direct stake in the deal herself.
By 10 June Fink decided he had to find a different source of funding with two days until his exclusive position with Barclays expired.
In the end long-time shareholder PNC Financial Services, hedge fund Highfields Capital Management and sovereign wealth funds from Singapore, China and Kuwait stumped up the $2.8 billion.
