Barclays’ Capital?

Barclays is trying to put clear blue water between itself and Royal Bank of Scotland. But until the bank opens the shutters on its £30bn-plus of potentially toxic assets, it will face mounting calls to follow its Scottish rival’s £12bn rights issue and strengthen its own capital base. The crude read-across from RBS is grim. Take assets backed by Alt-A mortgages, where RBS has written down its exposure from 83 cents in the dollar at the end of 2007 to 50 cents now. Applying the same markdown to B...