Barclays Bank is said to have started the process of selling its Egyptian unit and Dubai-based Emirates NBD and Moroccan Attijariwafa Bank are interesting in buying the unit. Barclays had about two months ago sold 12.2% of its shares in the Barclays Africa Group for about 13.1 billion Rand ($879 million), leaving the bank with a 50.1% share. The bank had announced in May that it wants to divest part of its 62% stake in Barclays Africa to a level, which would permit it to de-consolidate Barclays Africa from a regulatory perspective. Barclays has been operating in Africa for almost a century, making it one of the leading western banks in the continent, employing about 44,000 people and running 1,267 branches. The business had 36 billion pounds worth of assets on a risk-adjusted basis and made a profit of 791 million pounds in the first nine months reported.
