Barclays said today it was buying Indexchange for around €240 million ($305 million) from German bank Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank (HVB).
Barclays, Britain's third-biggest bank, said the deal to buy the provider of exchange traded funds (ETFs), which has assets under management of €15.2 billion, would be financed with existing cash resources and was expected to close within three months.
The group said Indexchange would be combined with Ishares, Barclays Global Investors' ETF business. BGI is the world's biggest manager of ETFs, with around $231.6 billion of assets, around 48 per cent of market share.
ETFs, which have expanded rapidly in recent years and now take a large chunk of daily market turnover, are listed and trade like individual stocks. They enable users to get exposure to equity, bond and commodity markets without having to own the underlying index components.
Barclays posted a better-than-expected 37 per cent rise in half-year profits to £3.67 billion ($7 billion) in August, buoyed by performance in its investment banking arm countering a big rise in bad debts.
Shares in Barclays closed at 705-1/2 pence yesterday, valuing the group at around £46 billion.