Equity Group Holdings is in a share purchase agreement with a Belgian entrepreneur George Arthur Forrest, the owner of the Forrest Group, in DR Congo to buy 66.53 per cent of the shares held by the company in Banque Commercial du Congo.
The public limited bank, BCDC business will now be joined with that of Equity’s existing banking subsidiary in DRC, Equity Bank Congo after the transaction was completed.
Equity Bank will pay $105 million (Sh10.69 billion) for the 625,354 shares to be purchased inclusive of dividends that were declared after January 1, 2019. The dividends were in respect of the financial year that ended on 31 December 2018.
Equity Bank is also on the path to up its shareholding in EBC through the acquisition of shares held by KfW, development bank owned by the German Government.
As of 2017 Equity held 85.9 per cent stake in EBC, Kfw at 8.1 per cent while International Finance Corporation with 6 per cent of the bank with more than $200 million in assets.
Equity Group CEO Dr. James Mwangi said it is an opportunity for them to take further steps towards the delivery of its vision of building sub-Saharan Africa’s premier financial institution by delivering innovative products and services to customers particularly on the effective use of technology.
