GTBank Plans To Acquire Kenyan Bank

FUNSHO AROGUNDADE

Guaranty Trust Bank, one of Nigeria’s leading Tier One banks is making plans to acquire a Kenyan lender.

Segun Agbaje, the bank’s group managing director, disclosed this Monday at an investor call in Lagos.

According to reports by Bloomberg, this is part of the bank’s plan to expand its operations on the continent.

“I think the place we will still like to do business or do an acquisition is Kenya,” Bloomberg quoted Agbaje.

The Lagos-based lender already has offices in 10 countries outside Nigeria including Kenya and Ghana.

GT Bank is Nigeria’s biggest bank by market capitalization.

It wants to increase the contribution of African subsidiaries to the bank’s income to about 30% of profit before tax in the next three years from 15.3% in 2020.

The Bank targets 10% growth in the loan book this year and pre-tax profit of 243 billion naira from 238.1 billion naira.

It announced in November it had received an approval-in-principle from the Central Bank of Nigeria to transition to a holding company by way of a scheme of merger between the lender and its shareholders.

The move will see it tow the path of rival FBN Holdings and Stanbic IBTC Holdings.

The holdco structure will enable a new corporate group known as a parent company to hold the outstanding stock of the companies making up the group, while maintaining only oversight capacities over them without participating in the day-to-day running of the companies.

The bank last week reported a 4.6 per cent jump in its gross earnings to N455.230 billion and a 2.33 per cent rise in profit to N201.440 billion.