JPMorgan has been appointed as the successor depositary bank for the American Depositary Receipt programme of Barclays PLC.
The average daily trading volume of Barclays PLC’s ADRs is $55 million year-to-date, with total ADR holdings in Barclays at $1.7 billion at 31 March.*
“We are proud to have Barclays, a renowned blue-chip company, join our roster of clients,” says Claudine Gallagher, global head of depositary receipts at JPMorgan. “This mandate is testament to JPMorgan’s strong position in the depositary receipt industry, in both developed and emerging markets.”
Institutional ownership of, and trading in, the ADRs of UK and developed Europe companies remains strong. Institutional ownership of UK ADRs was $126 billion at the end of second quarter 2008. For the first half of this year, trading in UK ADRs totalled $199 billion, up from $128 billion in the same period last year. Developed Europe ownership of ADRs totalled $278 billion in the first quarter of 2008. Trading activity in ADRs in the first six months of 2008 totalled $518 billion.
*Sources: Ownership statistics – 13F filings. Trading volume – Bloomberg