Barclays has raised 603 million pounds ($876 million) by selling a 12.2 percent stake in Barclays Africa Group, a crucial first step in a plan to curb risk and refocus on core markets in Britain and United States.
Barclays is selling down its 62 percent stake in the South African lender as part of a plan to simplify the bank’s structure, shore up its balance sheet and generate higher shareholder returns.
Following completion of the placing, the British lender will continue to hold 424.7 million ordinary shares or a 50.1 percent holding in Barclays Africa, worth around $4.4 billion based on the placing price.
The sale, priced at a discount of 6.5 percent, was oversubscribed multiple times and attracted “very high quality demand” from domestic and international investors, a source said.
Barclays did not give any details of the investors who took part in the placing. South Africa’s state pension fund Public Investment Corporation (PIC) said on Wednesday it planned to acquire up to 10.3 million shares.
PIC, Africa’s largest fund manager with more than $122 billion of South African government employee pension assets under its custody, was already the second-biggest shareholder in Barclays Africa with a holding of about 6 percent.
Source: Reuters
