The Co-operative Bank of Kenya is now waiting for green light from regulators to finalize the 90 percent acquisition of Jamii Bora Bank.
This follows a unanimous approval of the transaction by shareholders of Jamii Bora Bank during the extra ordinary general meeting held Wednesday.
The acquisition of Jamii Bora Bank comes just months after the previous Jamii Bora suitor, Commercial Bank of Africa, dropped its acquisition bid and instead merged with NIC Bank to form NCBA Group.
In the previous deal, CBA had in January last year made a 1.4 billion shillings cash offer.
The co-op bank deal however, is the latest instance of merging in Kenya’s banking industry that will see an injection of 1 billion shillings additional capital into Jamii Bora Bank besides appointment new of the board to run the new outfit.
In a statement to newsrooms, Co-op Bank Group CEO Gideon Muriuki, disclosed that through an Extra Ordinary General Meeting held on 1st July 2020, its offer was unanimously approved to acquire 90% of the lender.
Jamii Bora Bank, with over 444,000 customers and 17 branches employs over 190 staff, has faced liquidity shortfalls that remain below regulatory threshold. The move will see co-op bank expand its customer and asset base in the region to over 470 billion shillings.
Muriuki says, “This acquisition will strengthen both institutions leveraging on Co-operative Bank’s Universal Banking model.”
Co-op Bank amassed a profit of 20.7 billion shillings for the year ending December 31, 2019, and on April 23, 2020, the company paid out over 5.9 billion shillings in dividends to its shareholders.
