Staff at the San Francisco headquarters of Barclays Global Investors had little idea in early 2009 that BlackRock was about to become their new employer.
In April that year, Barclays had accepted a $4.4bn offer from UK buyout firm CVC Capital Partners to acquire BGI’s exchange traded funds division. But the British bank was still in the market for better offers, including bids for the entire BGI investment management business.
