Barclays invested as much as $52.6m in Barrenjoey Capital Partners, an Australian boutique. Later, Barclays announced that the firm has doubled its stake after the notable investment to 18.2%. Barclays remarked that by the help of a regulatory capital fund, Barrenjoey could establish fixed income derivatives and equity financing platforms.
Previously, Barclays’s stake at Barrenjoey was 9.99%. In other words there is an extra 8.2% stake value around A$915m. The initial stake payment was A$45m. According to some sources, Barrenjoy plans to expand access in Barclays credit trading and securitisation platforms. The UK bank actually provides global investment banking services to Australian partners, majorly through partnership. The partnership involves distribution, research, cross-border advisory and debt capital markets products. Access to its balance sheet is also in the partnership program.
Barclays investment is all new capital. Thus, other shareholders could have their holdings decreased. Magellan Financial Group’s stake for instance, reduced to 36.3% from 40%. Barrenjoey’s management and staff will get the remaining 45.5%. It is down from the previous 50.1%. In August last year, Magellan booked a loss of A$41m with Barrenjoey stake.
Barrenjoey received a number of famous local executives. Ex-Challenger boss Brian Benari joined as CEO. Guy Fowler, UBS’s former Australia head of investment banking is the executive chairman. Matthew Grounds, the ex-UBS rainmaker, joined as co-executive chairman as well. Senior Barclays bankers have also been seconded to Barrenjoy, they are Pail Early and Stuart Yardley.
Barclays noted that Australia is an important part of the bank’s strategic plans in Asia-Pacific. Barrenjoy even delivered their start-up plans. Their partnership is central to Barclays’ expansion in the bloc. The bank added that there were many significant transactions made with Barrenjoy during the partnership. This includes the Brookfield-led consortium’s A$18bn take-private of AusNet.
