Barclays Share Discussion Threads

[waldron] 23/4/2015 19:28

By Patrick Fitzgerald

A federal judge denied Lehman Brothers Inc.'s bid to carve out $1.3 billion from an earlier court decision that awarded $4 billion in disputed assets to Barclays PLC stemming from the U.K. bank's purchase of Lehman's brokerage business.

Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the U.S. District Court in New York said Wednesday that Barclays was entitled to all of the so-called margin assets--some billions of dollars in cash and collateral--securing derivatives positions. The ruling is a win for Barclays, which purchased Lehman's brokerage business days after Lehman's 2008 collapse.

The legal fight over the sale began in 2009, when Lehman sued Barclays saying the British bank negotiated a secret discount when it bought Lehman's brokerage. A bankruptcy judge concluded that Barclays didn't receive an improper "windfall" from the sale, but that Lehman's brokerage was entitled to the approximately $4 billion in margin assets.

Both sides appealed, and the district court ruled that Barclays was entitled to both groups of assets. James W. Giddens, the trustee winding down Lehman's brokerage, appealed to the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which last year affirmed the district court ruling.

"The issues raised by the trustee on this motion come too late," said Judge Forrest in a 17-page order. "Both appeals--that of the bankruptcy court's order and that of this court--have occurred. And both appeals encompassed determinations that Barclays is entitled to all margin assets."

Judge Forrest's order, in effect, clarifies the earlier rulings that awarded all the margin assets to Barclays. The trustee had sought to narrow the scope of those decisions, arguing that only those assets that were securing open trading positions at the time of 2008 sale were included in the deal. Mr. Giddens has appealed the broader decisions awarding all the margin assets to Barclays to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A spokesman for Mr. Giddens said, "The trustee is reviewing the decision, and he continues to move ahead with winding down the estate and maximizing assets available for future distributions."

Previously, Mr. Giddens has said the decisions overturning the bankruptcy court ruling have frustrated the purpose of the liquidation by reducing the amount available for the estate by $4 billion.

Lehman brokerage customers received about $92.3 billion almost immediately after Lehman collapsed, and since then total distributions have exceeded $112 billion, representing a 100% recovery for customers and priority creditors. However, unsecured creditors are receiving much less--$5.9 billion, or 27% of their claims. A Lehman victory in the appeal would increase those recoveries.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the bank's New York-based holding company, which itself has paid back about $100 billion to unsecured creditors, is still winding down and selling off its remaining holdings, a process that is expected to continue for several more years.

Write to Patrick Fitzgerald at [e-mail]

[portside1] 23/4/2015 14:31

agm statement the same as last years almost word for word

[manics] 23/4/2015 12:20

There's hashtags running on Twitter.

[portside1] 23/4/2015 10:40

lrj thank you

[lrj] 23/4/2015 10:39

Portside1

No live webcast for AGM, there is a live webcast for the Q1 results.

[portside1] 23/4/2015 10:28

have looked at all sites can find nothing

[waldron] 23/4/2015 10:20

PORTSIDE

TRY THIS

[waldron] 23/4/2015 10:14

Can't find webcast info on BARC SITE

[portside1] 23/4/2015 10:02

so is their a live webcast

[portside1] 23/4/2015 09:49

diku would but brother very ill and needs me .

[diku] 23/4/2015 09:39

Now you are letting us down on this thread...you must go...

[portside1] 23/4/2015 09:37

can not go to the agm is their a live web cast

[keifer derrin] 23/4/2015 09:19

another good way of hitting HFT is to charge them stamp duty on every trade - can you imagine the money that would bring into the revenue.....

[johnwise] 23/4/2015 08:17

How regulators have cracked down on high frequency traders

Navinder Singh Sarao is the latest person to be charged over the alleged manipulation of markets using high-frequency trading. Authorities have cracked down on the practice since the financial crisis

[waldron] 23/4/2015 08:17

Thanks for the FT Article

Mr McFarlane has plenty on his plate at Barclays, which has been hit by both misconduct scandals and poor performance at its investment bank. His letter to shareholders will be published at the end of the Barclays annual meeting on Thursday.

The hope is that as those exceptional items start to fade away, investors will realise the bank’s true earnings power and lift its share price above book value.

Mr McFarlane is not — yet — calling for a change in strategy, more an acceleration of the existing one. But few people — even inside the bank — expect him to be patient with Mr Jenkins for long if the recovery fails to materialise.

[triktrak] 23/4/2015 07:38

Barclays boss Antony Jenkins could be on his way out

Thursday will be the third annual shareholder meeting of Barclays at which Antony Jenkins has sat in the chief executive’s chair. Could it also be his last?

[triktrak] 23/4/2015 07:32

John McFarlane’s five priorities for Barclays

Barclays’ new chairman John McFarlane will quickly stamp his authority on the bank by writing to shareholders on Thursday to outline his priorities on the day he succeeds Sir David Walker.

[johnwise] 23/4/2015 04:36

ALEX BRUMMER: The hi-tech sharks who cost us all so dearly


Flash trading is no more a victimless crime than traditional insider trading, where people benefit from knowing financial secrets ahead of everyone else.

Free markets operate fairly only if there is absolute transparency. But it has become increasingly clear in recent times that advanced technology is the biggest challenge to the level playing field.

Indeed, some of the biggest trading houses, including Goldman Sachs and Barclays, have embraced another secretive form of trading in what are called ‘dark pools’. These, as the name implies, disguise the nature of share trades and who is making them.

The claim from the inventors and proponents of dark pools is that by directly matching buyers and sellers of shares and other securities, away from the official exchanges, they can obtain the best deals for their clients.

That may be the case, but the problem for investors using official markets such as the London Stock Exchange is that they’ll have no information on the volume of transactions done in these dark pools or the prices being set there, which immediately puts them at a disadvantage.

Now, the spotlight has been thrown on another kind of trading activity. If Navinder Singh Sarao is extradited and found guilty of market manipulation, it will have been a huge coup for the American regulators and prosecutors

[smurfy2001] 22/4/2015 21:49

Watch the share price recover when McFarlane does his stuff.

[davew28] 22/4/2015 21:37

Nick Goodway: Barclays boss Antony Jenkins could be on his way out

Thursday will be the third annual shareholder meeting of Barclays at which Antony Jenkins has sat in the chief executive’s chair. Could it also be his last?

At the end of the meeting, 75-year-old Sir David Walker will hand over as chairman to 67-year-old John McFarlane.

There are suggestions that a change in the driving seat might be a good idea.

McFarlane has form in this area. He was pivotal in the departure of Andrew Moss from insurer Aviva in 2012. Indeed, he acted as executive chairman for a while until Mark Wilson was identified and arrived as chief executive.

Jenkins has certainly held the fort since Bob Diamond’s departure in the wake of the Libor scandal in August 2012. He has successfully lowered Barclays’ profile, reduced the scale of its investment bank and dispensed with the name Barclays Capital.

But Barclays has not done as well as some of its shareholders might have hoped. Since Jenkins’s appointment, its shares have risen by some 60% while Lloyds’ are up by 160% and Royal Bank of Scotland’s some 75% .

Nor is Jenkins completely clear of the banking scandals which saw off his predecessors. PPI mis-selling happened, in part, on his watch, as did forex rigging.

McFarlane will not act in haste. But his review of the chief executive’s performance has already begun. Once the matrix is completed it might well signal Jenkins’s departure.

[blackberry122] 22/4/2015 20:32

macarre - watch this space for your answer " "