He was clearly furious. Claiming that he had been denied the opportunity to speak, he stormed to the front of the conference hall, intent on telling the City heavyweights in his sights what he thought of them, only to be restrained by a posse of security staff. For this investor, certainly, Barclays’ decision to turn to the Middle East for funds was a step too far.

That Barclays got its money yesterday will be a relief to the bank. Private and institutional investors voted to accept its contentious scheme to raise £5.8 billion from the Middle East.

But the meeting at the ExCel conference centre in East London was also a stark illustration that the price, at least in terms of management pride, for that cash has been high. Investors lined up to berate the bank and its executives and such was the bad feeling that Marcus Agius, the Barclays chairman, was forced to end questioning. Both he and John Varley, the chief executive, faced calls to resign.

Many in the audience, about 500-strong, complained about being shut out of a capital plan that gives the Middle Eastern investors almost a third of Barclays’ shares.

The bank has ignored the long-established right of first refusal for its existing investors, who now face dilution. Instead, Barclays choose to raise more than £7 billion, of which £5.8 billion was through a combination of securities issued to Qatar Holdings and Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi Royal Family. The remaining £1.5 billion was raised through a placement to institutional shareholders and was not part of yesterday’s vote.

Retail investors were shut out entirely. The bank won enough support to press ahead with its fundraising, but the refusal by 22 per cent of the bank’s shareholders to back it was a significant blow. A total of 584,125,704 votes were cast against the bank’s resolution to increase its share capital, while a further 528,965,914 votes were withheld as investors, particularly institutions, abstained.

Investor anger had already led Barclays to waive bonuses for four of its directors this year and put its entire board up for reelection next April. Yet the meeting heard demands for salary caps for directors, the end of executive share options and demands to resume dividend payments. When the harshest critics made their points, they did so to regular applause.

“Shame on you,” Eric Chalker, who owned 1,800 Barclays shares, said.

Trevor White, who has been a Barclays shareholder since 1962, said that he had lost £200,000 on his investment within the past 12 months.

He said that he had written to both Mr Varley and Mr Agius demanding their resignations.

Institutions, too, made their voices heard, among them F&C Asset Management. George Dallas, the director of corporate governance at F&C, which owns 57 million shares, said: “We think that this amounts to a clear and egregious abuse of preemption rights. We object that the consequences of voting against this particular transaction would make a bad situation worse.”

Mr Agius expressed Barclays’ “deep regret” over the fundraising, but he did not apologise for the bank’s position, as his counterparts at Royal Bank of Scotland had last week. He said that taking the “Devil’s route” and shutting out the bank’s long-term owners had put Barclays in an “exquisitely awkward position”.

He acknowledged the anger felt by investors, but said that the bank’s entire future could have been put at risk if it had pressed too hard for preemption rights to be respected. “A dangerous leak that we were struggling to find money on the right terms could have been terminal,” he said.

Afterwards, Derek Norcup, who has 7,000 Barclays shares, said that he had arrived with an open mind but had decided to vote against. The cancelling of the dividend, particularly when Mr Varley had hailed the bank’s profitability, was the final straw, he said.

What they said

'I deplore the lack of participation of all shareholders in this fundraising' - Roger Lawson, on behalf of the UK Shareholders' Association

‘However much they feel let down, shareholders did not want to be responsible for a wider failure in the banking system. In that sense, support for the resolution does not mean approval of the way the company has handled the issue' - Peter Montagnon, director of investment affairs at the Association of British Insurers

‘Given such a breach of shareholder rights, our normal policy would be to advise clients to vote against the proposed capital raising. In this case, we recognise exceptional circumstances' - Peter Chambers, chief executive of L&G Investment Managers

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