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HSBC has filed bankruptcy petitions against two senior members of the Barclay dynasty, as the bank seeks to recoup large debts owed by part of the family’s ailing business empire.
The bank launched High Court proceedings in London against Aidan and Howard Barclay in December, court records show, relating to debts owed by the Logistics Group, the failed parent company of the Barclay family’s brands Yodel and ArrowXL.
Logistics Group collapsed into administration in March 2024 after HSBC sought repayment of its £143.5mn secured debt and it was unable to repay. The bank has only received about £1.1mn of what it is owed, according to Companies House filings made in October.
The collapse of Logistics Group — of which Aidan and Howard Barclay were both directors — adds to the family’s businesses that have come under financial difficulty in recent years, resulting in some being seized by lenders. HSBC’s petitions were first reported by The Times.
Aidan and Howard Barclay are the older sons of the late Sir David Barclay who, along with his twin brother Sir Frederick used debt-fuelled acquisitions to build the family’s sprawling empire, including the Telegraph Media Group.
Lloyds Banking Group pushed the Telegraph into administration in 2023 over unpaid debts of about £1.1bn. This led the UK bank to conduct a sale of the right-leaning broadsheet that had been owned by the family since 2004. Lord Rothermere’s DMGT secured funding for its £500mn acquisition of the paper in late 2025.
The agreed takeover by DMGT came barely a week after RedBird Capital, the US private equity group led by former Goldman Sachs banker Gerry Cardinale, abruptly halted its own attempt to buy the 170-year-old newspaper.
Last month IMI, an Abu Dhabi state-owned media investor, appointed insolvency experts to sell off property assets from the Barclays’ Trenport Property Holdings. IMI had also backed an earlier attempt by RedBird to buy the Telegraph through an affiliated fund, RedBird IMI, only for that effort to be blocked by the UK government.
The family also lost control of retailer The Very Group last year, after US investment group Carlyle seized the asset. The change of control came after Carlyle and IMI agreed a fresh debt funding package for the Very Group in 2024.
Logistic’s administrator Teneo sold the shares in ArrowXL in June for an initial £2.2mn to Jacky Perrenot Group, a French logistics and transportation business. Yodel was sold in February 2024.
“A dividend of c.£1.12mn was distributed to the Secured Creditor on 5 August 2025 (representing 0.78p in the £ to date)”, Teneo stated in its October filing.
“Future recoveries for the Secured Creditor are uncertain and dependent on the performance of an earnout agreed as part of the sale of the subsidiary undertakings.”
HSBC and a spokesman for Aidan and Howard Barclay declined to comment.