News that Barclays will be selling Absa – probably to a Chinese bank or the PIC – is to be officially confirmed on Tuesday.

Two days after Nenegate, we reported that the UK’s largest retail bank had decided to offload its R70bn controlling stake in Absa (the bank is worth R120bn in total).

That marked a significant reversal in a strategy which has seen SA’s largest retail bank progressively change its image – with the Absa red and name progressively giving way to Barclays blue – including the listed company whose name was changed to Barclays Africa.

But according to this morning’s Financial Times of London, the new Barclays management team has gone through the motions over the past three months but is now set to confirm the biggest disinvestment in South Africa since the spate that hit the country during the mid 1980s. Sceptics are concerned that the Barclays sale will spark a similar exodus. Some believe it is a good thing. Likely buyers are the SA Government Employees’ pension fund (via the PIC) or a major Chinese banking group.