Feb 15, 2019
Barclays considered £500m cash injection from Russia
Russia offered to help bail out Barclays with £500m of emergency capital as the bank battled to avoid a UK taxpayer rescue at the height of the financial crisis, a court has heard. As markets roiled in the wake of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in 2008, and with the UK Treasury planning a sector-wide bailout, Barclays desperately sought overseas investors to keep the bank away from its own government's clutches. The proposal was taken seriously enough by the bank to be discussed at its board finance committee in an October 2008 meeting, although the minutes also make clear that the members of the group felt that Barclays needed to be "Very wary about Russia". The Russian stake acquisition was floated by Hans-Jörg Rudloff, according to the minutes, who at the time was chairman of Barclays' investment bank. Barclays then turned to investors from Qatar and Abu Dhabi in October 2008 in the second of the two emergency fundraisings that the bank carried in the space of four months, which ultimately saved the bank from UK government control.
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