LONDON (Standard&Poor's) March 28, 2013--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it expects to assign a 'BBB-' rating to Barclays Bank PLC's (Barclays; A+/Negative/A-1) proposed Tier 2 contingent capital notes, which it plans to issue in the coming weeks. We also expect to assign "minimal" equity content under our bank hybrid criteria, subject to a review of the final documentation. This will be the second issue of its kind by Barclays, following a US$3 billion issue in November 2012, which we also rate 'BBB-'. Under the terms of the proposed notes, a capital adequacy trigger event would occur if Barclays PLC's consolidated transitional CET1 ratio is less than 7% (CET1 is defined as core tier 1 capital
