Bob Diamond pounces as global banks retreat from Africa Bob Diamond, the former Barclays boss who is investing in African lenders, said big global banks have moved "off the stage" in the competition to buy financial assets, creating an opportunity for entrepreneurial new businesses like his. Pointing out that eurozone banks had identified €1.4tn of non-core businesses that they aim to sell, Mr Diamond said some could be snapped up by investors like himself seeking to capitalise on the retreat of global banks from many countries and activities. Mr Diamond, who conceded that he only started out in banking to fund his training to become a teacher, told the Financial Times banking summit in London on Wednesday that there was a "once in a lifetime" opportunity to invest in financial services. "For 20 or 30 years the buyers of financial assets were always big financial companies," he told the FT. Basel III [capital rules] and too big to fail regulation have changed that and they are now completely off the stage. He cited the example of his former bank's recent sale of its Spanish retail banking operation for about half its book value. Since quitting Barclays after it was fined for manipulating the Libor interest rate benchmark in 2012, Mr Diamond has since raised more than $600m on the London Stock Exchange to invest in African banks through his Atlas Mara venture. Mr Diamond said he was on a mission to build the top financial company in sub-Saharan Africa "over the next five to seven years." Atlas Mara has invested in three banks so far, building up positions in southern Africa, Rwanda and Nigeria. Having raised permanent capital from investors on the London stock market, Mr Diamond said he had an advantage in being seen as more long term than private equity by African politicians and executives. Building his Atlas Mara network of bank operations across southern Africa would traditionally have been far harder, because big global banks would have been powerful rival bidders. But no banks bid against Atlas Mara in the three deals he has done in Africa to date, Mr Diamond said. Money is being pulled back to home markets by banks in the US, UK and Europe because of Basel III. Global banks not in Africa are not looking at it all. It is fantastic - the heart of the reason we are doing this for. "Do I think the universal banking model is over - absolutely not," he said. "The type of universal banking model of pre-2007 will not come back, but we're not going to do away with them," he added, giving the example of investment banking where there is still a need for global services from big corporate and institutional clients. However, he said that in the past year the political mood had turned even more pessimistic about the ability to end the problem of banks that are too big to fail, or too complex to manage. "The separation of risk from deposits will continue," he added. Mr Diamond avoided the question of whether he had any regrets from his time at Barclays, citing his pride over boosting the profits from its BGI asset management unit from £50m to £1bn between 2001 and 2009 before it was sold to BlackRock to avoid the need for a government bailout.