Footie tycoon hedges stake in Barclays
THE BILLIONAIRE owner of Manchester City football club has moved to hedge himself against a drop in Barclays’ share price, investment bank Nomura confirmed last night.
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan has done a deal with Nomura to protect the value of his entire £2.4bn stake, amounting to 6.2 per cent of total Barclays shares.
Nomura said PCP3 will convert more than 131m warrants into shares, which will become subject to the hedge.
Nomura will simultaneously place around 220m shares with institutional investors, in a complex deal to hedge the sheik’s PCP Gulf Invest 3 fund, it said in a statement.
Several reports said yesterday the 220m shares had been sold for between 290p to 295p, a slight discount to Barclays’ closing price of 304p yesterday.
“The exercise and hedging mark the final completion of a strategy that locks in a significant gain on Barclays shares for PCP3 while retaining further upside,” explained Nomura in a statement.
“PCP3 will seek to continue to maintain a close commercial and strategic relationship with Barclays in the future.”
Sheikh Mansour, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, and the Qatar sovereign wealth fund helped prop up Barclays during the credit crisis in 2008.