Egyptian billionaire businessman Naguib Sawiris has expressed readiness to buy Barclays’ Egyptian unit, following the UK lender’s plans to sell of its units in Africa.
During a conference organised by the American Chamber Of Commerce (AmCham) in Cairo Tuesday, Sawiris said he would enter into a competition to acquire the UK lender’s Egyptian unit, if the Egyptian central bank regulations allow individuals to own banks in the country.
Earlier, Barclays’ new chief executive, Jes Staley announced on March 1st, intention to sell the bank’s Egyptian unit in a bold move to refocus on its core UK and US markets.
“We are leveraging the track record and expertise of our Non-Core management team by making a one-time expansion of the Non-Core perimeter with further businesses we plan to exit over 2016 and 2017, principally those from the Investment Bank recently announced, our Egypt and Zimbabwe businesses (which are not owned by BAGL), our Southern European cards businesses, and our Asian Wealth business. This adds around £8 billion of RWAs to Non-Core as at the end of 2015.” Staley said in a bank release.
Approach to sell Egyptian unit came after abandoning a plan to fold it into its Africa business.
The unit, whose presence in Egypt dates back to 1864, may be worth more than $500 million, Bloomberg reported earlier in February citing one person familiar, who asked not to be identified because the details are not public.
In January 2016, Staley had announced plans to further trim the investment bank, cutting up to 1,200 staff by closing smaller operations in Asia, Brazil, Europe and Russia.
