Barclays offloads Private Equity

Barclays Private Equity is being bought out by its own management team and will be relaunched as Equistone Partners Europe, the bank said yesterday, adding that the value of the assets being sold was set to be about £45m.

Barclays, which last month posted higher profits as gains in its retail banking and credit card business offset a slowdown at its investment banking arm, has been selling off non-core assets to improve its overall returns.