The sale of Barclays Global Investors may not be quite such a good deal for Barclays as it is for its president Bob Diamond. But it's not half bad.

Barclays loses the steady earnings of BGI, making it more dependent on its growing investment bank. But, allowing for the 20 per cent stake in the expanded BlackRock, the impact will not be dramatic.

Some of the strategic arguments look just a bit thin. Barclays points to the US rules on dealings between an investment bank and an asset manager in the same group. These are said to be a pain for Barcap now that it is big in equities after buying Lehman in the US.

Yet this was never raised as a problem by Citigroup, when it sold its asset management arm to Legg Mason, or indeed by Merrill Lynch when it sold MLIM to BlackRock.

Still, there is no doubt that by separating fund management from banking Barclays is going with the flow.

The idea that retaining a stake will somehow help Barclays' business relationship with BlackRock also looks a bit odd. Either the relationship makes commercial sense for BlackRock or it doesn't. If it doesn't, its other shareholders might have something to say about it. Combining BlackRock and BGI is not without risks. Just look what happened to Legg Mason. But BlackRock has a good record and the businesses are more complementary, which should mean modest job losses.

The truth is that Barclays could use some more capital and the deal would have increased end-2008 Core Tier 1 from 6.5 per cent to 8.0 per cent on attractive terms.

Whatever the benefits for Barclays' shareholders, it can only be good news for its customers.

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