Strategic investors have made a profit of £377m (€475m) on their £3.2bn investment in Barclays, less than a day after the UK bank's discounted stock offering closed and despite a slump in its share price over the past two weeks that deterred retail investors from subscribing to the issue.

Retail investors subscribed to only 19% of the £4bn offering, leaving the bulk of the bank's new shares in the hands of state-owned investors China Development Bank, Singapore's Temasek, the Qatar Investment Authority and Challenger, a group backed by the Qatar royal family.