Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of UK bank Barclays, has launched an equities trading service in Japan. The firm started trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 5 January.
According to a spokesman, BarCap aims to be one of the top three firms in the Japanese equity market.
The launch is part of BarCap’s global expansion of its equities business. The company bought failed US bank Lehman Brothers’ North American investment banking and capital markets businesses in September 2008 and launched its US equity trading and research business at the end of that month. Japanese investment bank Nomura acquired Lehman’s European and Asian businesses.
BarCap has continued to develop its equities business, going live in Europe and Mexico late last year. Following the Japanese launch, the company is now looking to expand equities trading to other Asian and Latin American countries and will continue to build its equities business globally.