(Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc said it has suspended sales of another 30 exchange-traded notes until it is able to fix a paperwork issue with U.S. regulators.
The London-based lender said sales of affected products under the iPath brand will be halted from Thursday until further notice. The notes boasted assets of $1.6 billion as of the Wednesday close, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The bank previously halted issuance in a handful of ETNs, revealing in late-March that it had mistakenly sold $15 billion more securities over the course of about a year than it had permission for. Barclays said Thursday it had booked a charge of 523 million pounds ($652 million) in the first quarter chiefly related to the blunder.
It said discussions were progressing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve its filing requirements, known as a shelf registration.
“Barclays Bank expects to reopen sales of the ETNs when the amended Form 20-F and new shelf registration statement have been filed with the SEC and will make a further public announcement when this action is taken,” the bank said in a statement.
The structured products blunder has been described as “basic”, “bizarre” and “embarrassing” by analysts. Major banks typically file for blanket registrations that allow them to regularly issue notes that give clients a chance to bet on everything from market volatility to the performance of Tesla Inc. shares. Market observers couldn't recall a bank's issuance exceeding the amount it registered, let alone blowing billions past its limit.
Read Matt Levine's column on the Barclays blunder
Barclays, which has commissioned an ongoing review by external counsel of the matter, said in its results statement that the error showed “material weakness” in relation to the group's internal control environment.
“This situation was entirely avoidable and I'm deeply disappointed,” Chief Executive Officer C.S. Venkatakrishnan said on a call with journalists Thursday. He said there was no evidence of misconduct so far, but added: “The necessity of strong controls culture has never been clearer to me.”
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