Barclays US Acquisition...

I couldn't visit a Web site today that didn't mention the news on Barclays looking for a US acquisition. I might not be adding to the conversation, but according to my bimbo point of view, with about $1.19 trillion in cash, Barclays could easily acquire any of the larger US banks with cash, including:

BAC
C
COF
JPM

In fact, I think if the FWFOCH would allow it, they could look at two or more acquisitions, but that would probably be OTT.

I've visited all the retail banking centres in the US and unfortunately, none of them are very big on service. I wish one of them would realise that if they could get the client services bit right, they could be building a very sustainable competitive advantage, especially since people actually don't expect quality service from a bank. But I digress.

I don't actually know whether an actual acquisition by Barclays would benefit BAC or C (proud shareholder of both), but thank God they didn't decide to do this immediately after Lehman. This is definitely not going to be a distressed sale type deal and Barclays would need to pay up.

Speaking of C, it's the second day in a row where trading volume exceeded 1 billion. Is something up or what?