Today, Barclays Plc. announced that it has sold a 12.2 percent share in its Barclays Africa Group for about 13.1 billion rand ($879 million), leaving the bank with a 50.1 percent share. This occurred about 24 hours after the company announced its intentions to divest part of its 62 percent stake in Barclays Africa to a level which would permit it to de-consolidate Barclays Africa from a regulatory perspective.

The shares were reportedly sold to about 20 institutions, many of which are in South Africa. South Africa’s state-owned pension fund manager, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) acted as anchor for the deal and also bought 10 percent of the shares sold, raising its stake in Barclays Africa to about 7.2 percent. As of this afternoon, the shares of Barclays Africa on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange fell by 4.2 percent to 129.05 rand, and were down 0.2 percent at 134.49 rand. This is the lowest it has closed at since April 7.

Prior to this announcement, many bidders had shown interest in the bank since it first announced plans to sell part of its stake in Africa. One of these bidders was Atlas Mara, the new venture of Bob Diamond, former Barclay’s CEO. In April, Bob Diamond announced he had the right amount of funding to place a bid for Barclays Africa operations.

However, according to Financial times, the deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Kuben Naidoo, said that the Central Bank was not comfortable with private equity companies taking stakes in the country’s financial institutions.

Bob Diamond’s interest in investment banking

Up until 2012, during the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) crisis, Bob Diamond was one of the world’s most successful banking CEOs. He has always been keen on running investment banks and what boosting profit-making. Barclays was also all about cutting edge traditional technology, high returns and risks.

During the financial crisis, Barclays was able to secure funding from Qatar in order to avoid bailout from the government. And due to Bob’s quest for success and investment banking, as soon as he left in 2012, he set up a vehicle for investing in African banks and this was Atlas Mara, launched in 2013. A move geared towards undertaking the acquisition of target banks in Africa. This latest deal could have seen Atlas Mara become the largest firm of its kind in Africa.