The fourth largest bank in the UK - Barclays, is planning to sell shares for 4.5 billion pounds (8.9 billion dollars) mainly to foreign investors in an attempt to restore its capital after the reductions of assets related to the credit crisis.

The London-based bank will sell 1.58 billion new shares of Challenger, Qatar Investment Authority, Temasek Holdings Pte, China Development Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. and its shareholders. The financial institution will recruit 4 billion pounds from these investors selling new shares at a price of 282 pence each. Additional 500 million pounds will be raised from the sale of new shares of Sumitomo at a price of 296 pence each.

Barclays, which generates one third of its profits from capital markets, joins its competitors Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) and HBOS Plc in raising fresh funds.

Banks in Britain are facing slower growth in terms of the higher prices of credit, the increasing number of redeemed credits and the fastest drop-down housing prices since the recession in 90s of the last century.

The serious situation of credit markets led to the termination of the sale of securities secured by mortgage loans that banks like HBOS and Bradford & Bingley Plc used to finance housing loans. All over the world banks have gathered around 304 billion dollars additional capital in an attempt to recover their losses recorded after the collapse of the U.S. mortgage market.

Barclays has experienced reductions of assets worth 1.7 billion pounds since the beginning of the year. The amount is less than that of its competitors RBS and HBOS, which have reduced assets worth 5.9 billion and 2.8 billion pounds respectively since the beginning of the year.

Sovereign wealth funds have invested in Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley and UBS AG, which gathered this month 16 billion Swiss francs (15.4 billion dollars) from offering of rights, after it have gathered earlier this year 13 billion francs from investors from Singapore and the Middle East.