Barclays Plc has announced plans to sell a 7.4% stake of Absa Group Ltd, its former African unit, valued at $740 million.
The firm is placing about 63 million shares to institutional shareholders via an accelerated bookbuild placing, and Bloomberg reports that Barclays gathered enough investor orders to cover the sale within minutes of opening the book.
The sale represents about half of Barclays’ 15% holding in the African lender. The British bank has been reducing its stake in Johannesburg-based Absa in recent years. It sold off much of its controlling stake in the group — then-Barclays Africa Group — in 2017.
Absa Group Limited is a South African-based financial services group, and is the majority shareholder of 11 banks located in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania (two entities), Uganda and Zambia. The group maintains representative offices in Namibia and Nigeria.
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