Qatar National Bank acquires $200 million stake in Ecobank

Pan-African lender, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), announced Thursday that Qatar National Bank (QNB) has acquired a 12.5 percent stake in it from Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).

The stake, worth $200 million of Ecobank shares were transferred to the Gulf’s largest bank on Thursday at 20.01 naira each.

AMCON acquired the stake after Ecobank merged its Nigerian operations with failed lender Oceanic Bank, which AMCON helped to recapitalise, before the Ecobank takeover.

With the sale, AMCON, the second-largest shareholder in Ecobank, has divested its stake.

The transaction would make QNB the

Ecobank plans additional capital raising

Ecobank Nigeria may have begun plans to riase additional capital in order to boost its tier-1 capital. Vanguard gathered that the bank’s total capital adequacy ratio at the end of the first half of 2014 stood at 13.3 per cent.

The additional capital, according to capital market operator, will be a boost as the recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) draft guidelines categorised the bank as a systemically important bank.

According to Adesoji Solanke of Renaissance Capital, “Considering the Central Bank of Nigeria’ (CBN’s) preference for tier-1 capital for a bank of this scale, we think the subsidiary needs a tier-1 capital injection.”

The subsidiary of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) recently raised $250 million in tier-2 capital, thereby lifting its Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) to 16.5 per cent.

It was gathered that