Nigeria’s biggest lender by assets, Access Bank, plans to expand its footprints into four other African countries next year, Herber Wigwe, Chief Executive Officer, of the firm said.
“By this time next year we would probably have added about four more subsidiaries, most of them greenfield”, Bloomberg quoted Wigwe as saying in an investor-conference call, yesterday.
The plan to open operation is coming a few days after the lender successfully snapped up a 97.3 percent stake in Kenya’s Transnational Bank.
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According to Wigwe, the Bank is probably looking for South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Senegal, Liberia, and Ivory Coast as possible markets to establish its subsidiaries, partnerships or representative offices. If that happens, the Bank would be close to achieving its mission of having a presence in 22 African countries. It currently has operations in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Congo, Rwanda, and Kenya.
To finance this plan, Wigwe noted that the bank would consider whether to issue a fresh Eurobond before its $300 million debt sets to mature by 2021.“We are careful as to what going to the market means in terms of cost,” he said. “We will approach the market at the appropriate time.”
