Barclays soars on fundraising, placing plans

LONDON (Reuters) - Shares in Barclays (BARC.L) jumped over 9 percent in early trade on Monday after the bank confirmed it was considering selling a stake to outside investors to raise funds and boost its balance sheet.

At 0712 GMT, the bank's stock was up 9.4 percent at 348p.

After weeks of speculation, Barclays said it was considering a share placing and an offer for existing shareholders. Weekend reports had said it was close to raising 4 billion pounds ($7.8 billion) from sovereign wealth funds in a deal that would be completed in the next two weeks.

"Four billion pounds would lift Barclays' equity tier 1 ratio by around 100 basis points to close to 6.0 percent and so substantially ahead of its current target of 5.25 percent," Cazenove said in a morning note.

"We expect that shareholders will welcome this structure as it avoids the drawn out timetable of a rights issue and ends the corrosive speculation about an equity issue that, in our view, has caused the share price to underperform its peers in recent months."

(Reporting by Clara Ferreira-Marques and Dominic Lau)