Barclays Capital relaunches U.S. equities unit

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barclays Capital, the investment banking unit of Barclays (BARC.L), said on Tuesday it has relaunched its U.S. Equity Trading and Research division, following the acquisition of some assets of bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings (LEHMQ.PK).

The British bank integrated Lehman's sales and trading activities in U.S. institutional agency debt, program trading and listed options. Barclays Capital said it had resumed publishing research, with full coverage of close to 1,000 companies.

Barclays earlier this month acquired the North American investment banking and capital markets businesses of Lehman Brothers after the investment bank filed the largest U.S. bankruptcy case in history.

The 158-year-old financial institution collapsed under the weight of toxic assets, mainly related to real estate, that are now worth only a fraction of their original prices.

Lehman's failure forced a rush of fire sales in the U.S. financial industry.

Within days, Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch MER.N, JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) bought savings and loan company Washington Mutual Inc (WAMUQ.PK), Citigroup Inc (C.N) said it would buy Wachovia Corp's WB.N banking operations, and Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (8306.T) bought a 21 percent stake in Morgan Stanley (MS.N).

(Reporting by Juan Lagorio, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)