MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican bank Grupo Financiero Inbursa (>> Grupo Financiero Inbursa SAB de CV) on Friday said it agreed to buy the Brazilian unit of South Africa's Standard Bank (>> Standard Bank Group Ltd) for $45 million (27 million pounds), marking its first foray outside of Mexico.

The sale of Banco Sandard de Investimentos is part of a wider strategy by Standard Bank to sell off business units abroad in order to focus on Africa, where it is the continent's largest lender by assets.

Inbursa, controlled by Mexican billionaire businessman Carlos Slim and his family, is Mexico's No. 6 bank with 482 billion pesos ($36.44 billion) in assets, equivalent to a 7 percent share of the country's total bank assets.

The bank also operates a pension fund and insurance business in Mexico.

Shares in Inbursa closed down 0.85 percent at 29.10 pesos. Shares in Standard Bank, which is 20 percent owned by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) (>> Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) closed up 1.07 percent at 124.29 South African rand.

(Reporting by Elinor Comlay, editing by G Crosse)