BARCLAYS PLC

Barclays is a British financial services company that can be traced back to 1690, when John Freame and Thomas Gould started as goldsmith bankers. In 1776, the bank would be renamed as Barclay, Bevan and Bening. By the turn of the 20th century, the bank would have gone through several mergers, including Backhouse's Bank of Darlington and Gurney's Bank of Norwich. In the early 20th century the bank would extend its growing network by acquiring English banks, including London, Provincial and South Western Bank and British Linen Bank. In 1925, Barclays would have acquired the Colonial Bank, National Bank of South Africa and the Anglo-Egyptian Banks, operating under the name Barclays Bank. In 1965, Barclays would create a presence in the United States with Barclays Bank of California. Barclays would then shortly change its name to Barclays Bank International, continuing to acquire companies such as the Mercantile Credit Company and American Credit Corporation (renamed Barclays American Corporation under its commercial credit business). In company would then have an internal merger and restructuring, becoming Barclays PLC as the group holding company and Barclays Bank PLC, the consolidated UK retail banking division. The rest of the 1990s would have Barclays go through a series of acquisitions and sell offs, resulting in Barclays Global Investors and Barclays Capital. Barclays would also try to create greater synergy within its divisions by changing the trading names of its subsidiaries to Barclays. Today Barclays has close to 50 million customers and clients around the globe with over 2 trillion in total assets. The company employs over 130 thousand employees in over 50 countries around the world. Barclays has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Some of Barclay’s notable mutual funds include its Old Mutual North American Equity and HSBC American Index. Barclay’s exchange traded fund business, iShares, was sold to BlackRock for $13.5 billion.