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The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has invited prospective investors to express interest for the acquisition of its shares in Keystone Bank Limited.
The corporation made this call in a public notice published in a national daily on Monday.
AMCON explained that in furtherance of its strategic objectives, it had decided to divest its shareholding in Keystone Bank and had appointed Citibank Nigeria Limited and FBN Capital Limited as financial advisers and Banwo &Ighodalo and Crosswrock Law as legal advisers on the divestment.
Based on the audited financial statement of the bank as at June 30, 2015, Keystone Bank’s total assets stood at N317.6 billion, customer loans at N98.2 billion, customer deposits at N245 billion and total equity at N18.9 billion. As at December 2015, Keystone Bank had four operational subsidiaries of which two are international; and a distribution network comprised of 156 branches, 22 cash centres and 306 ATMs.
Among others, interested buyers were requested to indicate their interest by submitting an Expression of Interest (EOI) with documents such as description of acquiring entity or vehicle with evidence of registration or incorporation; ownership of the acquiring entity or vehicle, identifying all shareholders with a five per cent or more stake; and strategic rationale for the acquisition of Keystone Bank Limited.
The submissions of EOI are expected to be sent not later than March 4, 2016.
The Managing Director of AMCON, Mr. Ahmed Kuru had revealed this in a recent interview with the media in Lagos that the sale of Keystone Bank Limited would be concluded in the next five months, explaining that the process leading to the sale of the financial institution had already started.
“Initially the sale of Keystone was supposed to be completed by first quarter of 2015. But the politicking slowed down the process and at the time when they started the process, AMCON management decided to wait for the 2015 election to be concluded. Immediately after, there was a change in government and because this is a new government, we had to brief them of what we intended to do.
“Down the line, there was change in board and later change in management. But we got the Central Bank of Nigeria’s approval in December to sell Keystone Bank and we have started the process. Hopefully, we would complete it in the next five months,” Kuru added.
