Barclays raises $1.3 billion to boost capital

LONDON (Reuters) - British bank Barclays Plc (BARC.L) raised 701 million pounds ($1.3 billion) by selling shares on Thursday to add to this week's boost to its capital as part of its purchase of assets from Lehman Brothers LEH.N.

Barclays said alongside Wednesday's purchase of Lehman's U.S. broker-dealer business that existing investors would inject 600 million pounds. The combined 1.3 billion pound fundraising will top up a capital cushion that had been stretched by the credit crunch and had stood below most rivals.

Barclays raised 4.5 billion pounds in July, which lifted its core tier 1 equity ratio to 6.3 percent.

This week's fundraising, plus a negative goodwill adjustment of $2 billion from the Lehman deal, is likely to add 45-50 basis points to the capital ratio, to take it near 6.7 percent. The bank has earmarked about 2 billion pounds of its rights issue cash for growth, which could lower the core tier 1 ratio by about 60 basis points to leave it just over 6 percent.

Barclays said it sold 226 million shares at 310 pence each in Thursday's placing.

The capital raised will give it additional resources to realize the full potential of its purchase of Lehman's U.S. assets "to create significant value for Barclays shareholders", it said.

Barclays shares closed down 5.3 percent at 301p.

The shares were sold via an accelerated bookbuild by Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Cazenove.

(Editing by David Holmes and Hans Peters)