Barclays Freed Up Cash for Hedge Fund Bets as It Hit Loan Limits
(Bloomberg) — Barclays Plc executives wanted extra capacity to lend more aggressively to fund bets by hedge fund clients, as Asian artificial intelligence stocks skyrocketed earlier this year.
They pushed a solution: Macro rates traders ended up lending part of their allocation to support the boom in so-called prime financing, according to people with knowledge of the matter. They did this through an internal auction, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.
The move to shift around capital worked for Barclays, which had reached its maximum limits on how much financing it could provide to hedge fund clients in Asia over the summer. The alternative financing plan underscores how it and other banks are finding ways to meet demand, despite bumping up against internal constraints.
Prime brokerage involves services offered to hedge funds, including financing, custody and matching of funds with investors. It has been a key driver of equities revenue across many banks, including Barclays.
The pitch was that the bank should allocate more of its balance sheet to higher-returning businesses like prime brokerage, which sits in the global markets unit led by Adeel Khan, given the huge growth expected in Asian technology stocks, the people said.
“We deploy our investment bank balance sheet dynamically, responding to client opportunities while maintaining a disciplined approach to risk and returns,” a spokesperson for Barclays said in an emailed statement.
Highly levered funds that borrow from Wall Street banks have grabbed headlines this year as volatility, particularly in technology stocks, has fueled much of the surge in trading revenue.
Some hedge funds were particularly damaged when artificial intelligence stocks fell in July, including Situational Awareness. Bloomberg previously reported that Barclays declined to take on the fund as a client because of concerns over concentration risk in that sector.
Traders at Barclays — as in the case of other banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — also took steps to work with hedge fund clients to limit their balance sheet use, encouraging them to take more short positions, the people said. Those positions lessen the burden on prime brokers’ books.
Barclays’ equities arm is expected to report £865 million ($1.2 billion) in the third quarter on Thursday when it announces earnings, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the highest third-quarter performance since at least 2009, the year after Barclays acquired the North American business of Lehman Brothers.
Goldman Sachs earlier this month said that demand for equities financing continued to exceed available industry capacity. Chief Financial Officer Denis Coleman said this supported attractive pricing and allowed Goldman to “remain selective in deploying resources.” In July, he said that in prime and FICC financing, there was “far more demand across the segment than we’re willing to engage.”
UBS Group AG CFO Todd Tuckner said in July that the bank’s balance sheet for equities was being used “more sparingly” to support prime brokerage.
–With assistance from Ambereen Choudhury.
©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
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