A senior Scottish banker - it may even have been Sir Fred Goodwin, of Royal Bank of Scotland - once said that it was important not to panic, but if you were going to panic, make sure you are the first to do so. Sir Fred certainly seems to have taken the advice. The RBS rights issue is well into the open sea. HBOS and Bradford & Bingley are still on the slipway. Any attempt at a rights issue by Barclays was probably never going to be seaworthy.

So it was down to John Varley, the Barclays chief executive, to put a brave face on the need to round up a Japanese bank and yet another sovereign wealth fund to buttress its own £4.5 billion “firm placing and placing”, to give it its precise name. It is pretty obvious that Barclays had its arm twisted by the powers that be to boost its capital ratios, which have noticeably lagged behind its rivals. So the necessary arguments were deployed. Any rights would have been at a huge discount to the current price, put the bank at the mercy of short-sellers, market instability, etc, etc.

Meanwhile, hooking up with Japan and Qatar, along with the links with the existing investors China and Singapore, will help expansion into these growing economies, etc, etc. This last point is questionable, even if its BarCap arm has indeed gained some business from the Chinese. And although any rights issue would clearly have been problematical, whether this justifies erosion of existing shareholders' entitlements is also a matter for debate.

Singapore's Temasek and the China Development Bank, by only participating in the exercise to the extent that they avoid dilution of their existing stakes, have taken the view that they have enough Barclays shares for now, thank you. Having lost half the value of their original investment, who can blame them? I have no idea what the penalty is in Beijing for losing £1.5 billion of government money but I suspect it makes the worst the Financial Services Authority can hand out in London seem benign.

On current trading, Mr Varley reiterated his views in last month's trading statement, which at least confirms anecdotal evidence from elsewhere in the sector that things are not getting any worse.

By going down the placing route, however, Barclays is depriving its shareholders of the opportunity to sell their rights rather than take them up, a useful perk. The argument is that, with the value of other banking shares plunging to the rights price or beyond, that perk is of little value in these markets.

Yet coming after the decision to deprive shareholders in Bradford & Bingley of the chance to exercise their pre-emption rights, it does seem to suggest a trend. One that, in more stable times, should be resisted.

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