In 2008, Staveley played a prominent role in the investment of £7.3 billion in Barclays by the ruling families of Abu Dhabi and Qatar, and by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund.
[1] Staveley's firm, PCP Capital Partners, acted for Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the Abu Dhabi royal family, who invested £3.5 billion to control 16 percent of the bank.
At the age of 16, Staveley left school and enrolled at a crammer, winning a place to read modern languages at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.
Through the late 1990s she started dealing in shares and became an active angel investor, especially in dot com enterprises and biotech firms such as Futura Medical.
[12][14] At the time, it was claimed that Q.ton owed EuroTelecom £835,000 and that Staveley had agreed to buy back the company's stake, only for the money not to be forthcoming.
[14] Staveley bought EuroTelecom's stake in Q.ton from the firm's administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers, a deal that led to a discontinued petition of bankruptcy against her when payment was delayed.
[7] In 2008, the Financial Times described her firm, PCP Capital Partners, as really amounting to Staveley and her legal partner, Craig Eadie, and explained that, although based in Mayfair, London,[17] the company acts "via offshore private equity affiliates" as a vehicle for the investment of Middle Eastern money, with Staveley acting as an adviser on those deals.
[18] These contacts brought Staveley to a new level of prominence at the end of 2008 with the investment of Middle Eastern funds in Barclays as the bank sought to recapitalise by raising money privately rather than accept a bail-out from the British government following the financial crisis of that year.
[22][1] A judgement was reached in February 2021 with Staveley losing the case despite the judge ruling that the bank was "guilty of serious deceit" towards PCP Capital Partners.
In March 2021, Waksman ruled that Barclays was responsible for its own legal costs as the bank had made a "financial benefit as a result of its fraud".
[41] On 12 July 2024, Staveley and her husband announced they had left Newcastle United and sold their remaining shares in the club which, by this time, had reduced to 6% from the original 10%.
[42] Also in 2008, Staveley fronted a bid by the Qatar Investment Authority to buy the Trillium facilities management business from the Land Securities property group, an offer reportedly totaling £1.1 billion.
[47][48] In March 2012, it was announced that Waterway PCP Properties Ltd, a Middle Eastern private equity group fronted by Staveley, had paid Land Securities £234 million for their Arundel Great Court site on the north bank of the Thames in London.