Temasek sold Barclays stake at a big loss

LONDON: Singapore state investor Temasek sold its stake in British bank Barclays Plc several months ago at a big loss, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.

  

After spending over £1bil on the shares in the last two years, unlisted Temasek may have lost over £800mil on the investment, according to calculations by Reuters.

 

Temasek’s sale of shares in Britain’s second biggest bank at a loss is in sharp contrast to Abu Dhabi which sold more than 11% of the bank’s shares on Tuesday, making a US$2.5bil profit from its investment in just seven months.

 

Temasek sold its near 2% stake in December and January, one of the sources said. The sources declined to be named.

 

Temasek and Barclays declined to comment, and details of the price it sold at were not known.

 

Temasek paid £975mil buying Barclays shares at 720 pence apiece in July 2007. It pledged to spend up to £200mil last July to buy more shares at 282p each as part of bigger fundraising, but it never disclosed how many it bought. It would have spent about £90mil to maintain its holding at 2%, giving it 167 million shares. Only investors with more than 3% need to disclose changes in their holdings. — Reuters