Barclays African Unit May Buy Parent’s Zimbabwe, Egypt Banks

Barclays Africa Group Ltd., the South African lender controlled by Barclays Plc, said it’s in talks with the parent company to buy the British bank’s operations in Egypt and Zimbabwe.
“We’re keen to acquire them, but it has to be done at a competitive price and be value accretive and that’s the process we’re in with Plc,” Maria Ramos, chief executive officer of the Johannesburg-based lender, said on a conference call Tuesday.
“Our core priority is to extract value from our existing portfolio.”
After buying its parent company’s operations in eight countries on the continent in 2013 in an all-share deal, Barclays Africa has been standardizing technology across the continent and rolling out investment-banking products.