Britain’s Barclays has completed the sale of its Egyptian business to Morocco’s Attijariwafa Bank as part of its shift towards focusing on the US and Britain.
The sale will mean a cut of about £2bn in Barclays’ risk-weighted assets, it said on Tuesday, boosting the bank’s core capital ratio by about 0.1%. Barclays did not give a price for the transaction, although sources valued the business at about $400m.
The London-based lender is seeking to sell its African operations as part of a plan by CEO Jes Staley to simplify its structure and improve shareholder returns.
However, attempts to sell the African businesses as one have come up against difficulties, including the disparate nature of the local units, the biggest of which is Barclays Africa Group, mainly made up of former South African bank Absa.
Barclays successfully sold a 12% chunk of its holding in the South African bank in May, but talks to sell a bigger holding in the business have so far not yielded a deal.
Former Barclays head Bob Diamond’s bid to buy Barclays Africa Group as part of a consortium was dealt a blow by the withdrawal of Carlyle Group earlier this year.
The Moroccan lender’s general manager said in March it planned to expand into Egypt.
Barclays shares were up 1.4% before the close, in line with an increase in the broader STOXX European banks index.
Reuters