Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Barclays: A Tale Of Two Investors - Temasek Holdings and Sheikh Mansour

On the right corner we have Manchester City's boss' £1.5bn Barclays share deal

  • Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan made nearly £1.5billion profit after selling shares in Barclays yesterday.

    The bank's biggest Middle East investor International Petroleum Investment Company, headed by the billionaire boss, sold a near 12 per cent stake.

    Barclays turned to Abu Dhabi and Qatar for financial help last autumn at the height of the financial crisis.

    The sheikh bought £2billion of convertible notes which could be changed into Barclays shares at 153p. These were sold for 265p.

    But investors took news of the sale badly and the bank's shares promptly plummeted more than 13 per cent.

And no wonder Sheikh Mansour is a happy camper!

Investing works!

However one the other corner, we have poor old Temasek Holdings!

Yeah, Temasek again.

They were just featured recently and was awarded the "One Of The Worst Investments In This Period!" by David Faber on CNBC.

According to WSJ article, Temasek got hit big time again!

Double ouch!

Temasek Sells Barclays Stake At $850M Loss

  • SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Singapore's Temasek Holdings Pte. has sold its entire stake in Barclays PLC (BCS), booking a loss of around $850 million from the investment, people familiar with the situation said Wednesday.

    Temasek sold the stake of about 2% mostly in December and January, the people told Dow Jones Newswires.

    The state-owned investment company had invested over GBP1 billion ($1.66 billion) in Barclays, starting in July 2007.

    Temasek's loss is in contrast to gains another Barclays investor will make from selling part of his stake in the U.K. bank.

    On Monday, Sheik Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi's royal family, announced plans to sell 1.3 billion Barclays shares, resulting in a gain of GBP1.5 billion from the original investment of about GBP2 billion.


    According to a person familiar with the situation, Temasek's exit from Barclays "is in line with its plan to concentrate more on Asia."

    Earlier this year, the Singapore firm sold its 3.8% stake in Bank of America Corp. (BAC). That sale resulted in a loss of about $4.6 billion, according to people familiar with the situation.

    Temasek said it sold the Bank of America shares to balance "risks against opportunities."

    Both Temasek and Barclays declined to comment on the stake sale in the U.K. bank.

Ouch!

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