UK-based Barclays announced on Wednesday it plans to sell 12.2 percent of its stake in Barclays Africa Group, or 103.6 million shares,  through a placing with institutional shareholders that will raise $879 million.

The sale will cut Barclays shareholding in one of the largest banks by customers on the continent to slightly above 50 percent, from its current holding of about 62.3 percent.

Jes Staley, Barclays chief executive, said this was “an important first step” in reducing its stake in the African business.

“We continue to explore opportunities to reduce our shareholding, including capital market and strategic options,” Staley told  Financial Times.

The bank confirmed in March that it planned to sell down its stake in Africa to less than 20 percent in the next two to three years to ease mounting regulatory pressure in the UK.

South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation PIC, a state-owned pension fund manager and Barclays Africa most powerful investor, has agreed to act as an anchor by buying up to 10 per cent of the shares being sold by Barclays.

PIC already holds about 6 per cent of Barclays Africa.

Barclays recently detailed how its complex sell-down plan would pan out and has hired JPMorgan and Citi to help with the sale-off, would also have to provide ‘exit assistance’  to its African business for up to three years after the deal is done.

At least eight international and local financial institutions are interested in buying a stake in the bank, either in part or as whole. These include PIC, Atlas Mara a financial investment vehicle owned by Barclays former CEO Bob Diamond, and Qatar Nation Bank.

In an unexpected twist, South Africa has warned that a bid by Diamonds Atlas Mara or any other other private equity for the third largest bank in the country will face opposition from regulators, Bloomberg reported.

“As a regulator we won’t be comfortable with a private-equity play for any of the banks,” Kuben Naidoo, Deputy Reserve Bank Governor. told reporters in Pretoria on Tuesday.

Any investor seeking to buy more than 15 percent of a South African lender needs approval from the Reserve Bank, while the purchase of a controlling stake will need the consent of the finance ministry.

Diamond’s investment firm has team up with a major US-based private equity firm, Carlyle Group, to prepare a joint bid for Barclays Africa.

Atlas Mara has been on a buying spree across the continent’ financial markets and currently has investments in over seven African countries.