Knight Vinke, the activist American investor, has been thrust to the fore-front of a potential shareholder revolt at Barclays over a £7.3 billion fundraising that includes a preferential placing to investors in the Gulf.

It is understood that Knight Vinke has held talks with at least one top20 Barclays shareholder amid mounting speculation that opposition to the bank’s capital-raising plans is growing.

Knight Vinke, which ran a corporate governance campaign against HSBC, is said to be seeking a meeting with a top-ten Barclays investor.

Banking sources said last night that Knight Vinke was trying to determine whether there was sufficient unrest among Barclays shareholders to justify a public revolt over its capital-raising plan. The size of Knight Vinke’s holding in Barclays is not known. It was unclear whether the fund was driving a potential rebellion or being called on to lead a protest.

Barclays avoided tapping the UK Government for emergency capital this month by embarking on its own fundraising, in which Middle Eastern investors could end up owning about a third of Britain’s third-largest high street bank.

Under the terms of the deal, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi Royal Family and new owner of Manchester City Football Club, will inject up to £3.5 billion in Barclays for a stake of up to 16.3 per cent. The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), already a Barclays shareholder, will increase its stake from 6.2 per cent to 12.7 per cent at a cost of up to £2 billion. The Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, will pay £300 million to increase his holding to up to 2.8 per cent.

However, some long-term Barclays investors are livid at the way that the deal was structured. Barclays will issue £3 billion of tax-deductible securities that pay a coupon of 14 per cent for ten years as well as warrants that will give Sheikh Mansour and the QIA the right to buy the bank’s shares for 198p.

Institutional investors have complained that all shareholders should be granted the same rights, known as preemption. Existing institutional investors were offered £1.5 billion of mandatorily convertible notes that pay interest of 9.75 per cent and must be converted to shares by the end of next June at 153p.

Critics argued that it would have been cheaper for Barclays to go to the Government, which has already organised financial rescues for Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS. In these cases, the banks are issuing a combination of ordinary shares and preference shares, which pay a coupon of 12 per cent.

Barclays has denied that its capital-raising is costlier than seeking government funds or that it is trying to avoid planned restrictions on bonus payments for leading investment bankers.

Knight Vinke and Barclays both declined to comment.

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