{"id":122449,"date":"2016-05-04T13:52:09","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T11:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=122449"},"modified":"2016-05-04T13:52:09","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T11:52:09","slug":"government-in-talks-with-barclays-over-absa-stake-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/122449\/government-in-talks-with-barclays-over-absa-stake-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Government in talks with Barclays over Absa stake: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s state pension fund, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC<\/em>), is in talks with Barclays over a bigger stake in its African business, which includes Absa.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

This is according to a report by Reuters, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter.<\/p>\n

The PIC, managing assets of over R1.8 trillion, is wholly owned by the South African Government, with the Minister of Finance as shareholder representative.<\/p>\n

It is the second-biggest shareholder in Barclays Africa, with a current holding of approximately 6%.<\/p>\n

“There are discussions going on about the PIC increasing its stake in Barclays Africa,” the source said, declining to be named because the matter is private. “There’s no PIC-led consortium. It’s just the PIC.”<\/p>\n

Barclays Africa Group, which includes Absa, claimed in March that there is no lack of interest from buyers seeking a stake in the company after Barclays announced that it will be selling down its stake to less than 20% over the next two to three years – from 62%.<\/p>\n

The Financial Times,<\/a>\u00a0reported in April that former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has teamed up with US private equity group, Carlyle, to prepare a bid for Barclays Africa.<\/p>\n

The FT said that regulators are expected to block any attempt of a merger deal between Barclays Africa and other local banks, including Nedbank and FirstRand.<\/p>\n

“As a regulator, we would not be comfortable with private equity play for any of the banks,” deputy governor Kuben Naidoo said at a press conference in Pretoria this week.<\/p>\n

Barclays declined to comment, Reuters said.<\/p>\n

More on Absa<\/h3>\n

Absa sale a step closer: report<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Fitch downgrades Barclays Africa on sale plans<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Barclays Africa may already have a willing buyer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Barclays is selling off its stake in Absa \u2013 confirmed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Barclays exit not because of SA economy: Ramos<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s state pension fund, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), is in talks with Barclays over a stake in its African business, which includes Absa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":109375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[29,3300,26,2994],"class_list":["post-122449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-absa","tag-barclays","tag-headline","tag-pic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122449"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122457,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122449\/revisions\/122457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}