SHARES in Barclays rose by more than 25 per cent yesterday after the bank’s two leading figures released an open letter.

Chairman Marcus Agius and chief executive John Varley wrote the letter to “address the principal causes of concern which we are hearing”.

Barclays shares have tumbled for the past fortnight and the bank lost almost half of its value last week amid fears that it will have to turn to the Government for funding help.

Two weeks ago it announced more than 4,000 potential job losses in its global investment banking and retail and commercial banking divisions.

But Mr Agius and Mr Varley said Barclays would not need to ask the Government for any financial assistance.

Barclays shunned a taxpayer bail-out last year, but has raised more than £7bn through a fundraising which leaves almost a third of the bank in the hands of Middle East investors.

The letter, released through the stock market, said the capital raising gave Barclays more than the required funds to provide a buffer against future losses.

Barclays had “confidence that our capital resources are sufficient to manage Barclays safely and prudently even in these difficult markets”, it said.

“Our starting point is that Barclays has £36bn of committed equity capital and reserves – we are well funded, and we are profitable.

“However, we know that our stakeholders want to see the detailed figures for 2008 as quickly as possible.”

The bank will now release its financial results early, on February 9, and the letter said profits would be well ahead of the £5.3bn forecast in the City.

Mr Agius and Mr Varley said the bank would announce write-downs amounting to £8bn from the credit market exposures of Barclays Capital in its upcoming financial report.

‘‘These figures demonstrate that although we have been heavily impacted by the credit crunch, our income generation was at a record level in 2008 and has enabled us to withstand this impact and still produce strong profits,” the letter said. It said, in the interest of clarity, the bank would provide “extensive details” of the write-downs.

The letter welcomed the Government’s most recent banking bail-out package, particularly the planned insurance scheme which would provide guarantees for bank lending.

Mr Agius and Mr Varley said Barclays had had a “good start to 2009”, although they predicted that the global economy would remain weak.

The letter said Barclays Capital had benefited from the integration of Lehman Brothers and had an extremely strong performance in the first month of the year.