Staley is putting one of Barclays’s more profitable businesses on the block at a time of low commodity prices and political turmoil in South Africa. He’s preparing to sell an initial 10 percent stake in the Johannesburg-based business to several large investors, while keeping the option to divest its entire holding, people familiar with the matter have said.

“There will be some people who would be slightly nervous about selling a business to somebody who was an insider before,”

Piers Hillier, who helps oversee about $123 billion, including Barclays shares, as chief investment officer of Royal London Asset Management, said in an interview with Anna Edwards on Bloomberg TV. “We’d want to see not just one candidate, who’s effectively a former insider, as the only available candidate to purchase. It doesn’t tend to mean you’re going to be able to secure the best price.”

Atlas Mara said its board of directors “supports the exploration of the potential combination” of the company with Barclays’s African operations, while Diamond and Thakkar will “recuse themselves” from the firm’s internal discussions over the potential approach.

Atlas Mara stock gained 7.3 percent at 3:10 p.m. in London trading. It has still fallen about 16 percent this year amid a reversal of the commodities boom that made Africa the last great growth frontier.

Atlas Mara also reported its first annual profit today as lending jumped 15 percent and deposits rose 12 percent.

“Strategically, the building blocks are falling into place and I fully expect that 2016 will demonstrate further progress on our journey towards building sub-Saharan Africa’s premier financial institution,” Chairman Arnold Ekpe said in the statement.

Eoin Treacy's view

With Africa expected to account for the bulk of population growth over the coming decades the continent represents one of the few remaining big growth stories for the banking sector. The decline in commodity prices and the associated uptick in political discontent is not going to stop young people from growing up and wish for a better standard of living. 

The only way that can be achieved is for governance to improve and for capital to be made available so that economic growth can flourish. Africa is already tentatively moving into manufacturing basic products but that is likely to accelerate as labour costs rise elsewhere. 

Atlas Mara has been trending lower since shortly after its IPO in late 2013, It even ceased trading for six months in 2014 only before resuming its decline. The share hit a near-term low last week near 4p and will need to sustain a move above 5p to break the medium-term downtrend and signal a return to demand dominance beyond short-term steadying. 

Barclays more than halved over the last year, returning to test the lower side of the developing Type-3 base formation. It has steadied over the last couple of weeks and a reversionary rally is underway. A sustained move above 180p would at least break the progression of lower rally highs. 

Standard Chartered miss-stepped by lending a great deal of money to miners at the top of the cycle. Its business declined along with commodity prices. The share has now unwound a deep oversold condition relative to the trend mean. Some consolidation is looking more likely than not while a sustained move above the MA would signal a return to demand dominance beyond short-term steading.