A third voting adviser has added its weight to the row between Barclays and its shareholders over the bank’s proposals to raise fresh capital from Middle Eastern investors.

Pirc, the pensions and investment research consultants, said yesterday that shareholders should reject the plan to raise £7bn, most of it from the Qatar Investment Authority and Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family, without giving existing investors the chance to take part.