London, July 2, 2026, 10:01 BST
- Barclays was up 0.53% at 517.75p by 10:00 BST, nudging past the FTSE 100, which gained 0.47%.
- The £750 million Barclays HQ lease buy is about 1.1% of the bank’s market value and 1.5x its last finished buyback.
- The Canary Wharf deal landed at around £750 a square foot, topping a number of recent local office valuation levels.
Barclays PLC (LON:BARC) traded up on Thursday after the bank put more money into its London HQ than into its most recent share buyback. The London Stock Exchange was open for its normal 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. BST hours.
Barclays traded at 517.75p as of 10:00 BST, up 0.53% with 4.08 million shares moved. Shares sat 6.6% under the 52-week peak at 554.10p and 62% above the 52-week low of 319.35p, according to Google Finance.
Barclays’ capital use got more attention. The bank picked up a 999-year lease for its One Churchill Place HQ in Canary Wharf for £750 million. Barclays expects the deal to be about neutral to both its capital ratio and earnings.
| Barclays item | Figure | Market read |
|---|---|---|
| Share price at 10:00 BST | 517.75p | Shares rose 0.53% so far |
| Market value | £69.92 bln | HQ buy is roughly 1.1% of market cap |
| HQ lease purchase | £750 mln | Spent 1.5x last buyback amount |
| Completed buyback | £500 mln | 110.1 mln shares bought back |
| Buyback average price | 454.30p | That’s about 14% below current price |
| HQ purchase per current share | About 5.6p | Cash payout, not a hit to EPS |
This buyback comparison is key as Barclays just wrapped up its £500 million buyback last week, taking in 110.1 million shares at an average price of 454.2957p. At Thursday’s price, buying the same amount would be about £570 million.
Barclays CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan said the bank has called the building home for over 20 years. He said buying the property brings “long-term certainty” and “greater flexibility over our London footprint.” Reuters
The price on the property is where things start to get tough. Reuters Breakingviews put the value for One Churchill Place near £750 a square foot in this deal. The group also mentioned that Canary Wharf Group securitisation came to £677 for 20 Bank Street, £669 for One Canada Square, £635 for 40 Bank Street, and £618 for 20 Cabot Square.
| Canary Wharf asset | Value per sq ft | Barclays HQ premium |
|---|---|---|
| One Churchill Place | £750 | — |
| 20 Bank Street | £677 | 10.8% |
| One Canada Square | £669 | 12.1% |
| 40 Bank Street | £635 | 18.1% |
| 20 Cabot Square | £618 | 21.4% |
Barclays was paying about £40 a square foot in yearly rent, according to Reuters Breakingviews. That’s well under the Q1 average of nearly £60 for comparable Docklands properties. Based on that, the £750 per square foot price tag comes out to nearly 19 years on existing rent, or about 12.5 years when measured against the current market rate.
Richard Bloxam, CEO of capital markets at JLL, told Reuters it was “encouraging” to see that level of capital go into a big gateway city. Chris Gore, principal at Avison Young, said the £750 per square foot price is still under the £800–£1,200 typical for City of London space, but clean comparisons are tough because of the lease structure. Reuters
Barclays shares climbed 1.66% to £5.15 on Wednesday, even as the FTSE 100 (INDEXFTSE:UKX) slipped 0.18% to 10,478.34. MarketWatch reported trading volume at 20.9 million shares, lower than the 50-day average of 52.4 million.
Payment is the second live item, but it’s less direct for the capital account. Barclays, HSBC Holdings PLC (LON:HSBA), Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LON:LLOY), and NatWest Group PLC (LON:NWG) are among the earliest UK banks to use a Swift consumer payments framework for cross-border retail money transfers. The first payment corridors let customers get money from Australia, China, India and Turkey, and send funds to Australia.
Sofie Petersen, head of FIG payments products at Barclays, said the bank is relying on its Faster Payments and sterling clearing systems to help with “near real-time settlement” and “end-to-end transparency.” Swift said over 60 banks in 25 countries have signed on to the initiative. Business Wire
Barclays is due to report first-half results on July 28. Back in April, the bank said first-quarter return on tangible equity came in at 13.5%, profit before tax reached £2.8 billion, and the CET1 ratio was 14.1%. That CET1 ratio slipped to 13.9% after the £500 million buyback.
