One of the biggest mergers in the past three years in Kenya has been what created NCBA Bank #ticker:NCBA , whose swift growth has made it the lender to watch.
Just two years after the NIC Bank and CBA Bank merger, NCBA is now the largest lender by customer base.
By the time of the merger, the Kenyatta family controlled 24.9 percent of CBA through an investment vehicle called Enke Investments Limited.
Other shareholders in the bank are billionaire businessman Naushad Meralia linked to Yana Investments that owned 11.14 percent, Ropat Nominees (22.5 percent), Ropat Trust (5.37 percent) and Livingstone Registrars with 19.9 percent. The rest are held by other institutions and individuals.
On the other hand, NIC was owned by the Ndegwa family through First Chartered Securities with 15.84 percent, ICEA Asset Management Ltd, also partly owned by the family, had 9.16 percent and Livingstone Registrars with 8.73 percent among other
This saw a link between two big families and the same investor on the entity.
NCBA chief executive John Gachora has dismissed critics who attribute its meteoric rise to the current regime.
Mr Gachora says the biggest investment is in digital lending where the bank has cast its nets to serve over 50 million customers, making NCBA Group the largest banking entity in Africa.
Having combined with a big asset financier, NCBA has emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries in infrastructural and private construction projects, and asset financing.
The lender, listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, is the fourth-largest in Kenya with a Sh562.63 billion asset base in the nine months to September, an 8.4 percent growth compared to a similar period last year.
It follows Equity Group #ticker:EQTY (Sh1.18 trillion) as the pacemaker, KCB Group #ticker:KCB (Sh1.12 trillion) and Co-op Group #ticker:COOP (Sh592.89 billion.)The merger resulted in more than doubling of net earnings in 2019 at Sh7.84 billion, from Sh3.24 billion registered by NIC Bank in 2013, which held 4.17 percent market share while CBA Bank was at 5.12 percent at the time.NCBA had a market share of 9.7 percent by December last year, dropping from 10.1 percent in 2019 due to pandemic. The lender reported Sh4.57 billion in net profit that year.The Kenyattas have a 13.2 percent stake in NCBA while the family of the late Phillip Ndegwa owns 11.75 percent.“It’s important to note we are two-year-old. Two years ago there was no NCBA,” said Mr Gachora in an interview with Business Daily , […]
