(Adds price estimate, background on Africa disposals, shareprice)
LONDON, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Britain's Barclays hascompleted the sale of its Egyptian business to Morocco'sAttijariwafa Bank as part of its shift towards focusingon the United States and Britain.
The sale will mean a cut of about 2 billion pounds ($2.55billion) in Barclays' risk-weighted assets, it said on Tuesday,boosting the bank's core capital ratio by about 0.1 percent.
Barclays did not give a price for the transaction, althoughsources previously told Reuters they valued the business ataround $400 million.
The London-based lender is seeking to sell its Africanoperations as part of a plan by Chief Executive Jes Staley tosimplify its structure and improve shareholder returns.
However, attempts to sell the African businesses as one havecome up against difficulties, including the disparate nature ofthe local units, the biggest of which is Barclays Africa Group, mainly made up of former South African bank ABSA.
Barclays successfully sold a 12 percent chunk of its holdingin the South African bank in May, but talks to sell a biggerholding in the business have so far not yielded a deal.
Former Barclays Chief Executive Bob Diamond's bid to buyBarclays Africa Group as part of a consortium was dealt a blowby the withdrawal of Carlyle Group earlier this year.
Reuters reported Attijariwafa's interest in March, as theMoroccan lender's general manager told Reuters he planned toexpand in Egypt.
Barclays shares were up 1.4 percent at 1500GMT, in line withan increase in the broader STOXX European banks index.
($1 = 0.7843 pounds) (Reporting by Lawrence White; Editing by David Clarke andAlexander Smith)
Barclays (BARC)
