Citi Business News can confirm state pension fund manager Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has acquired a stake in Nigerian Bank, Access bank Ghana.
SSNIT which acquired the stake during Access bank’s recent Initial Public Offer (IPO) becomes the biggest shareholder of the bank with 10 percent stake.
Access bank Ghana’s parent company which is Access bank PLC is the biggest shareholder with about 75 percent stake.
The remaining 15 percent belongs to a number of institutions and individuals.
Access bank joins a growing list of banks SSNIT has interests in including HFC and ADB.
General Manager of SSNIT, Ernest Thompson commenting on the acquisition told told Citi Business News ‘In fact I think that any moment from now we will be acquiring more shares in ADB and Access Bank but these are investment portfolios so usually some will go to such areas like housing, some will go fixed and current, and some will go into equities and the rest. What you need is to have a balanced portfolio and we have a very balanced portfolio , they just finished their IPO so they will be allotting the shares and the rest, It’s about 10% for ADBbut I’m not too sure so I will have to check. Access Bank is also about 10 %’.
Access bank will officially list on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) on Wednesday21st December, 2016 after successfully raising the minimum subscription needed to declare its Initial Public Offer (IPO) successful in order to list.
The bank on October 19th,2016 launched its IPO to raise 104 million cedis and extended the issue from November 11 to November 25, 2016.
Stock market analysts at the time cited inappropriate timing and pricing as some reasons leading to the extension of the offer period for Access bank’s Initial Public Offer.
“The extension was given to investors who were not able to purchase within the stipulated period. As expected for some us we were not considering the deal to be flying; also, we think the timing was not enough and the pricing too some of us think was on the high side,” Stock market analyst, Kofi Kyei stated.
The bank whose parent company is headquartered in Nigeria, was seeking to raise 104 million cedis, but succeeded in raising only 29.62 million cedis, which is slightly higher than the minimum 21 million cedis required by regulators to enable it get the green light to list on the GSE.
26 million shares were issued at 4 cedis per share, with a total of 1,820 applications subscribing to about 7.4 million shares.
Citi Business News has gathered the bank has received firm commitments from other investors to cover shares that were not issued under the terms of offer.
Over 96 million cedis is expected from those investors which will lead to total figure of about over 125 million cedis.
Access bank Ghana whose current capital base is around 430 million cedis, is seeking to use proceeds from the IPO to increase this figure while the remaining cash will be used to expand the bank’s presence and visibility in Ghana by building additional 76 branches with 2-3 years.
The bank’s IT infrastructure as well as customer base are also expected to be expanded with the proceeds.
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By: Vivian Kai Lokko/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
