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ROBERT Diamond said his Atlas Mara Co-Nvest Limited made a “quality first transaction” in buying ABC Holdings Limited and ADC African Development Corporation for as much as $265 million as the investment firm needed to buy a bank as it seeks to build an African financial-services business.
Atlas Mara announced on March 31 that the former Barclays Plc head’s company would acquire BancABC, which offers financial services in Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. ADC, which trades in Frankfurt, owns 47,1 percent of BancABC and 9,1 percent of Union Bank of Nigeria, the company said.
“One of our first missions as we do multiple acquisitions is to make sure that we have a technology platform, meaning we have the operations of a bank,” Diamond said in an interview in Harare, yesterday.
“It will give Atlas Mara ‘the licence to grow.’
Diamond, who quit as Barclays chief executive officer in July 2012 after the British bank was fined for manipulating benchmark interest rates, and Ugandan entrepreneur Ashish Thakkar raised $325 million in an initial public offering for Atlas Mara in December.
The investment firm, to which Diamond and Thakkar committed $20 million of their own money, is looking for African financial-services companies that can help businesses manage currency and commodity risks.
“There are a lot of things we can do that are going to be very innovative in Africa that aren’t necessarily new in other markets,” Diamond said. “Bringing in sophisticated capital markets platforms, a securitisation platform are things that are very needed to get capital markets moving and institutional investors more involved in the debt market here.”
BancABC started in Botswana in 1956 and trades both in that country and on Zimbabwe’s stock exchange. Shareholders include Old Mutual Plc and the International Finance Corporation, according to the lender’s website. Profit at BancABC rose 49 percent to 198 million pula ($22,5 million) last year, it said in a March 26 statement.
Atlas Mara will invest $100 million in BancABC after the transactions are completed, helping to boost the company’s capital-adequacy ratios, Douglas Munatsi, chief executive officer of ABC Holdings, said in an interview yesterday in Gaborone.
There are “obviously many other opportunities to focus on now,” he said.
“I can’t imagine a higher quality first transaction. It’s an outstanding start.” – Bloomberg
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