Centum Drops Plan To Sell Sidian Bank To Access Bank Nigeria

Centum Investment Company has terminated it plans to sell its majority stake in Sidian bank to Nigeria’s Access Bank PLC following a lapse of time in effecting the share purchase agreement (SPA).

Centum Group CEO James Mworia in a statement said the termination of the share purchase agreement means Centum will continue being majority shareholder of the mid-tier bank.

“The lapse of this agreement means that Centum continues to work with the management of the Bank on maximizing value to customers and all our stakeholders,” said Mworia.

Centum Investment Company PLC had, through a notice issued on June 7, 2022, announced that it had entered into a share purchase agreement to sell all of its shareholding in Sidian Bank Limited to Access Bank PLC.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed investment company holds 83.4 per cent of the issued shares of Sidian in its own name, and also through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Bakki Holdco Limited.

Completion of the acquisition of shares in Sidian by Access Bank PLC was subject to various conditions, by the Long Stop Date, as defined in the SPA.

Centum noted that despite the support and guidance of the Central Bank of Kenya, the Long Stop Date reached before the conditions to the SPA were fulfilled, meaning the SPA terminated and ceased to have force and effect.

Further, Centum was not able to reach acceptable terms with Access Bank PLC for an extension of the SPA and therefore opted not to pursue an extension of the same.

“Sidian is a profitable bank with a well-cut-out niche market that makes it one of the choice assets in Centum’s portfolio,” said Mworia.

The announcement comes as Centum has called a shareholders’ meeting to approve its planned share buyback.

The share buyback is intended to provide liquidity for owners of the dual-listed firm as well as reward long-term shareholders of the company whose proportionate holding will increase as a result of the share repurchase.

Access Bank , which has assets of more than USD25.5 billion, focuses on corporate retail banking, the lender hoped to boost the growth of Sidian, which would have been merged Access Bank Kenya formerly Transnational Bank.