Equity Group Holdings Plc. has acquired an additional 7.7-percent stake worth $9 million in its Congolese subsidiary, Equity Bank Congo (EBC), from Germany’s sovereign wealth fund KfW.
EBC was formerly called ProCredit, a German-owned bank.
The acquisition is part of Equity Group’s strategy to consolidate its banking subsidiaries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), raising its stake in EBC to 94.3 percent, Business Daily reported.
Equity Group has two subsidiaries in the DRC, the second- and fourth-largest banks in the country. They include EBC and Banque Commerciale Du Congo (BCDC). The merger of the two banks would produce a bank with a balance sheet of more than $2 billion, contributing over 20 percent of the group’s total balance sheet.
“We are glad that we now have the size and countrywide infrastructure that can bring our experience and capability to contribute significantly to the transformation of lives and livelihoods in DRC while stimulating the economic transformation of the country through resource allocation,” Hapa Kenya reported Equity Group CEO James Mwangi as saying.
Mwangi added that “the addition of an amalgamation with BCDC will put Equity Group Holdings Plc on the path to become a Kshs 1 trillion balance sheet business that will benefit from economies of scale.”
As of January 2015, three corporate entities jointly owned 79 percent of Procredit’s stock, including Procredit Bank, the German Investment Corporation and Stichting DOEN. The remaining 21 percent was held by KfW and the International Finance Corporation, which owned 12 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
“Post-merger, Equity holds 75.5 percent in EquityBCDC with the remainder being held by IFC (International Finance Corporation), the government of DRC and other minority shareholders,” Equity Group announced in a statement reported by Hapa Kenya.
In 2020, Equity Group announced the completion of its acquisition of a 66.53-percent stake in BCDC, the country’s oldest bank, for $95 million.
