FACTBOX: Key facts about Barclays

LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays is in talks with Lehman Brothers to buy its core U.S. broker-dealer business, people familiar with the matter said.

Barclays was involved in frantic talks over the weekend to rescue Lehman, and the resumption of talks reflects its ambition to bulk up its business on Wall Street.

Here are some key facts on the country's third biggest bank:

-- Barclays has over 4,750 branches, including more than 3,000 outside Britain in 50 countries. It employs 147,000 people and has 42 million customers. About 43 percent of last year's 7 billion pound profit came from overseas. Its market value is 28 billion pounds.

-- The London-headquartered bank has six divisions: UK banking; Barclaycard credit card business; international, including Absa in South Africa; Barclays Capital (BarCap) investment bank; Barclays Global Investors fund management; and Barclays Wealth.

-- Its origins date back to 1690 as a business helping monarchs and merchants fund ventures around the world. Several family firms were later combined and the Quaker founders chose the name Barclay because it came first alphabetically among the list of directors after a big amalgamation in 1896.

-- More acquisitions followed and by 1918 Barclays was one of the "big five" banks. It acquired Martins Bank in 1969.

-- Barclays' international expansion began in earnest in 1925 when it merged three banks in Africa, the Middle East and the West Indies.

-- It has never made a transformational acquisition, but in 2000 bought UK lender Woolwich for 5.3 billion pounds. It bought a majority stake in Absa for $5.5 billion (3 billion pounds) in 2005, two years after buying Spain's Banco Zaragozano for 1.1 billion euros (874 million pounds).