The accelerated bookbuilding saw around 103.6 million shares sold at a price of ZAR126 each, raising around ZAR13.1bn (£603m, $872m, €762m).
Following the sale, Barclays retains a 50.1% stake in one of Africa’s largest banking groups.
BAGL has majority stakes in banks across Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
Buyers
The shares were reportedly sold to about 20 institutions, many of them in South Africa. The Public Investment Corporation, South Africa’s state-owned pension fund manager, bought 10% of the shares on offer, taking its stake in BAGL to about 7.2%, reports the Financial Times.
It had been rumoured that former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond had joined forces with American private equity and alternative investment company, Carlyle Group, to make a joint bid for BAGL.
Diamond stepped down as chief executive of Barclays in July 2012 after the bank was fined a record £290m for manipulating inter-bank lending rates.
First step
Speaking about the share placement, Barclays group chief executive Jes Staley, said: “This is an important first step as we seek to reduce our shareholding in Barclays Africa to a level that achieves accounting and regulatory deconsolidation.
“As we said at our Q1 results, we continue to explore opportunities to reduce our shareholding, including capital market and strategic options.
“Barclays Africa is an important partner, and we are working closely with local management including planning for the operational separation of the two businesses in a way that will preserve value for shareholders in both the Barclays and Barclays Africa Groups,” Staley said.
Deconsolidation
The sale was confirmed in early March 2016, with Barclays advising that it intends to sell its full stake in BAGL over the next two to three years. The decision was taken as the bank faces increasing regulatory pressure over capital requirements and FX erosion.
Barclays also pulled completely out of Gibraltar in April, two years after it began winding down its retail banking operations in the jurisdiction.
In early April, Barclays Wealth and Investment Management (WIM) businesses in Singapore and Hong Kong were sold to Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.
