LONDON (Standard&Poor's) Nov. 9, 2012--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it had designated Barclays Bank PLC's (Barclays; A+/Negative/A-1) proposed Tier 2 contingent capital notes, which it has announced that it plans to issue in the coming weeks, as having "minimal" equity content under our bank hybrid criteria. We expect to assign a 'BBB-' rating to this issue, subject to a review of the final documentation. We understand that the proposed notes will be subordinated and rank pari passu with Barclays' existing dated subordinated notes, prior to a trigger event. Barclays has stated that a capital adequacy trigger event shall occur if Barclays PLC's consolidated transitional CET1 ratio is less than 7% (CET1 is defined as core
