Access Bank Holdings, the parent company of Access Bank Nigeria Limited, one of Nigeria’s tier-one banks, continued its pan African expansion with the acquisitions of banks across Africa.
According to the latest release from Access Bank Holdings, it said that flagship company, Access Bank and Standard Chartered Bank have entered into agreements relating to the acquisition of Standard Chartered’s majority shareholdings in its subsidiaries in Angola, Cameroon, The Gambia and Sierra Leone.
The deal also includes the Standard Chartered Bank’s Consumer, Private and Business Banking (CPBB) in Tanzania according to a release sent to the Nigeria Exchange Group.
Access Bank added it has entered into a definitive agreement for the acquisition of majority equity in African Banking Corporation (Tanzania) Limited (BancABC Tanzania).
BancABC Tanzania is a full-service commercial bank with over two decades of operations in Tanzania and it is expected to consolidate the CPBB business onto its platform.
The transactions are expected to be completed over the next 12 months, and Access Bank has made excellent progress in integration planning and will work in the coming months with Standard Chartered and BancABC Tanzania to ensure a seamless integration.
For the Standard Chartered transaction, Extotix Advisory acted as the Financial Adviser and DLA Piper as acted as Legal Adviser to Access Bank
Roosevelt Ogbonna, managing director of Access Bank said the move was meant to make Access Bank a true pan African bank.
He said: “For Access Bank, these transactions represent a key step in our journey to build a strong global franchise focused on serving as gateway for payments, investment and trade within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world as we continue to deliver on our to be the world’s Most Respected African Bank.”
Herbert Wigwe, Group Chief Executive of Access Holdings said the move would enhance income diversification and profitability.
“The Transactions mark a significant leap forward for Access Bank and reinforces our strategy of strengthening our footprint across Sub-Saharan Africa to harness synergistic opportunities for sustainable income diversification and profitability. We remain committed to our five-year strategy, which envisions our banking subsidiary emerging as a true leader in banking services across the African continent,” Wigwe said.
In quest to become a pan African bank, Access Bank executed a number of acquisitions which include Diamond Bank Lagos in 2019; Transnational Bank Nairobi in 2020; GroBank Sandton in 2021; BancABC Gaborone in 2021; BancABC Maputo in 2021; Sidian Bank Nairobi in 2022, and Finibanco Bank Angola in 2023.
