UK banking group Barclays booked an £884m goodwill write-down of its investment in JSE-listed Barclays Africa Group in its first-quarter results released on Friday morning. Barclays said this was primarily due to the 17% drop in Barclays Africa Group’s share price over the quarter. Following the £884m impairment, Barclays valued its remaining stake in Absa’s JSE-listed owner at £8.1bn as at March 31. The London-listed group said the impairment of its African operations, which exclude Egypt and Zimbabwe, resulted in an attributable loss of £801m in the first quarter of 2017 from a profit of £86m in the matching period in 2016. But the total income from its African operations grew by a third to £1.1bn in the first quarter from £818m in the first quarter of 2016. The UK banking group announced in March 2016 it intended to divest from its JSE-listed subsidiary. Barclays said in Friday’s results statement it was "on track to achieve regulatory deconsolidation, with further selldown subje...
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