Shareholders have shunned multi-billion-pound fundraisings by Barclays and HBOS as investors owning more than 80 per cent of each chose not to take up their rights to buy new shares.

Barclays said on Friday that shareholders accounting for just 19 per cent of the UK’s third-largest bank had decided to participate in the £4.5bn offering. People involved in HBOS’s £4bn rights issue, which closed on Friday morning, expect an even smaller percentage of investors to have taken up their rights. The bank is expected to announce the level of acceptances on Monday.