Business
AMCON: S’African Investors Race To Acquire Banks
Standard Bank Group Limited, Africa’s largest lender, and two South African rivals might still be interested in buying stakes in the rescued banks, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.
Standard Bank, the Johannesburg-based lender with operations in 17 African countries including Nigeria, is “still part of the process,” spokesman Erik Larsen said on Wednesday. FirstRand Limited and Nedbank Group Limited said they might also be involved in the bidding.
President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday approved a bill creating the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria to buy back over N1.5tn of bad debt from the 10 banks rescued last year. While as many as 15 foreign and local companies registered last year to investigate buying stakes, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, said last month that he expected only three international banks to join private-equity firms and local banks in the bidding.
“We are continuing to pursue our options on a number of different fronts, including the CBN process,” Sam Moss, investor relations director at FirstRand, said in an e-mail on Tuesday.
Nedbank will act in a “supportive role” to its Togo-based partner Ecobank Transnational Incorporated in considering the process, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Mike Brown, said on Tuesday. Ecobank, which agreed to cooperate with Nedbank at the end of 2008, already has operations in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, some stakeholders in the Nigerian capital market said the establishment of the Asset Management Company would help to revive activities in the capital market.
They said in separate interviews in Lagos on Wednesday that handing over of the troubled banks to capable investors would further aid the growth of the market.
The Managing Director of Sikon Securities and Investment Trust Limited, Mr. Are Akeem, said that the market would record steady growth in the third quarter of this year if the CBN handled issues well.
Our correspondent quoted him as saying, “The market will come up in the third quarter because the Federal Government has started to implement programmes that will help the capital market.
“The market will probably move up in the third quarter because the government had looked to the direction of the capital market.
“Besides, the market regulators, for the first time, are promoting investors’ interest.”
A stockbroker with Securities Solution, Mr. Ate Gideon, however, hinged the recovery of the market in the third quarter on the continued survival of the banking sub-sector.
According to him, if the banking sub-sector that controls more than 60 per cent of the stock market capitalisation can grow by 50 per cent, the market will grow more.
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