Barclays share price: Bank eyes TD Direct takeover

Barclays (LON:BARC) has reportedly made an offer to acquire retail stockbroker TD Direct Investing, one of the UK’s biggest retail stockbroking businesses.

Sky News yesterday revealed that the bank was among a small number of bidders, which have submitted offers to buy TD Direct, which is wholly owned by the Canadian lender Toronto Dominion Bank. If the deal goes through, it is likely Barclays will then look to merge TD Direct with its own stockbroking division, Barclays Stockbrokers, creating a challenger to current market leader Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HL).

TD Direct has £13 billion of assets under administration and Barclays Stockbrokers has £15 billion, so a combined entity would still fall somewhat short of matching Hargreaves’ Vantage platform, which had £52 billion of assets at the end of September 2015.
Inside sources have said, however, that there are internal disagreements at Barclays on whether to proceed with the offer, as a successful bid could result in job cuts at Barclays Stockbrokers. They further noted that there were concerns over TD Direct’s Luxembourg-based international arm following a series of fines from regulators relating to offshore clients. In addition, TD Bank is understood to be still mulling the move may yet decide to halt the sale process altogether.
Barclays’ share price had dipped today, standing 2.22 percent down at 178.75p as of 09:35 GMT. Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 was 1.57 percent lower at 5,965.04 points.
As of 09:59 GMT, Tuesday, 02 February, Barclays share price is 178.80p.