Barclays raiser backed

Barclays today won shareholder backing for its highly controversial £7 billion fundraising, for which most of the money comes from Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

But a significant 20% of shareholders voted against the fundraising or abstained.

Chairman Marcus Agius did not apologise to shareholders but said the board regretted what had happened to them in the last year. He said the bank had rejected a Government bailout of the type taken by Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS because part-nationalisation would have lost it clients and customers. But he faced several calls to resign.