Qatar, the gas-rich emirate that helped to rescue Barclays last year, cashed in £615 million of option profits from the deal yesterday in a stinging reminder to the bank’s ordinary shareholders of what they missed out on.

Qatar was awarded the options, or warrants, as part of a complex £7 billion capital-raising last October, which provoked a dispute because Barclays flouted normal practice by shunning its existing investors.

The Gulf state is sitting on cash and paper profits of about £2.3 billion in total from its two investments in the bank last year, thanks to a stunning turnaround in the share price of Barclays. Abu Dhabi, another selected investor invited to the rescue financing, has cashed in its shares at a profit of £1.45 billion and is sitting on paper profits on options of about £2.4 billion.

Qatar Holding (QH), the sovereign wealth fund, sold 379 million shares at 360p yesterday after exercising the option to buy them at 197.775p. Barclays shares dived by 18.3p, or 4.8 per cent, to close at 363.75p, as the newly issued stock weighed on the market.

Shares in J Sainsbury surged by 17.7p, or 5.4 per cent, to close at 347.80p, as the move reignited speculation that Qatar was interested in making a bid for the supermarket group. It owns 26 per cent of Sainsbury’s, whose shares have surged by 11 per cent since the rumour surfaced last week.

Ahmad al-Sayed, the chief executive of QH, said that the Barclays deal was part of its portfolio management programme and did not alter its intention to be a long-term strategic shareholder in the bank. Its wealth fund’s stake reduces from 7.3 per cent to 7.1 per cent as a result.

QH also owns a similar number of unexercised options — potentially worth another £615 million — together with £1.25 billion of Barclays bonds paying a 14 per cent interest rate until 2019.

Barclays received £750 million in proceeds from the warrant exercise, boosting its core Tier 1 ratio, a key measure of financial strength, from 8.8 per cent to 9 per cent.

John Varley, the chief executive, said that Qatar remained the bank’s biggest shareholder and a key partner to the Barclays Group.

Barclays was attacked last October for ignoring the convention that existing shareholders be given first refusal in any capital-raising, but the board took the view at the peak of the crisis — soon after the collapse of Lehman Brothers — that it needed the certainty of an immediate cash injection. A conventional rights issue would have taken too long and investors at the time were wary of committing new money to banks.

The new Barclays shares were placed in the market by Credit Suisse, in which QH is an investor. The wealth fund also owns stakes in Songbird, the owner of Canary Wharf, and the London Stock Exchange.

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