The Barclays Africa Group (BAGL) announces that it has withdrawn its cautionary announcement on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) pertaining to discussions with Barclays Bank PLC (BBPLC) about the potential to combine with BBPLC's 100% holding in Barclays Bank Egypt SAE and 67.7% holding in Barclays Bank of Zimbabwe Limited.
Following extensive discussions, BAGL and BBPLC could not agree key commercial terms and a decision has been taken not to proceed with the proposed combination.
Maria Ramos, Group Chief Executive of Barclays Africa, said: "While we are naturally disappointed that we were not able to agree commercial terms with Barclays Bank PLC, a decision had to be taken in the best interests of our stakeholders, including our minority shareholders. The Barclays Africa Group remains focused on our current portfolio."
Barclays Egypt and Barclays Zimbabwe remain important businesses and the status quo in relation to the ownership and day-to-day management of these businesses remains unchanged.
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For more information please contact:
Lexi Ball
Barclays Africa Group Media Relations
011 846 5934
072 992 0641
Lexi.ball@absa.co.za
About Barclays Africa Group
Barclays Africa Group Limited is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and is one of Africa's largest financial services groups. We are uniquely positioned as a fully global, fully regional and fully local bank. We offer personal and business banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management as well as bancassurance.
Barclays Africa is 62.3% owned by Barclays Bank PLC (Barclays). At 30 June 2015, we had 847,8 million shares in issue and a market capitalisation of R155,0 billion. We operate in 12 countries with more than 41 thousand permanent employees and we have 12 million customers.
Our registered head office is in Johannesburg, South Africa and we have majority stakes in banks in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania (Barclays Bank Tanzania and National Bank of Commerce), Uganda and Zambia. We also have representative offices in Namibia and Nigeria. Barclays Bank PLC has operations in Egypt and Zimbabwe which are an integral part of our African business and continue to be run by Barclays Africa operationally.
For further information about Barclays Africa, please visit our website www.barclaysafrica.com.
About Barclays
Barclays is an international financial services provider engaged in personal, corporate and investment banking, credit cards and wealth management with an extensive presence in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Barclays' purpose is to help people achieve their ambitions - in the right way. With 325 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays operates in over 50 countries and employs over 130,000 people. Barclays moves, lends, invests and protects money for customers and clients worldwide.
For further information about Barclays, please visit our website www.barclays.com.
© Press Release 2015
