South Africa’s Standard Bank has increased its stake in Kenyan subsidiary Stanbic Holdings to 69.1 percent by the year ended December 2019, the bank said in a press release. For this Standard Bank acquired 4.3 million shares in Stanbic worth Sh422 million, the South African bank said.
The bank also said that it intends to continue with the share purchase in the short term. It intends to raise its stake in the Kenyan financial services holding company that is listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange to 75 percent, eventually.
Last year, Standard Bank had announced that it was willing to purchase 59 million Stanbic shares at Sh95 each in an offer that was valued at Sh5.6 billion. That offer ran from May 21 to July 3, 2018. However, the bank received offer acceptances amounting to only 31.6 million shares. This raised Standard Bank’s stake in Stanbic Holdings to 68.01 percent from 60 percent.
Standard Bank then applied with Kenya’s Capital Market Authority to buy more Stanbic Holdings shares to take its total stake in the Kenyan financial services company to 75 percent.
In its annual report, Standard Bank said that it had subsequently bought an additional 1.09 percent stake in the Kenyan subsidiary as of December end. This additional stake purchase amounted to 4.3 million shares.
Stanbic Holdings owns Stanbic Bank Kenya and stock brokerage company SBG Securities. Stanbic Holdings made a net profit of Sh6.28 billion for the financial year 2018 against Sh4.31 billion earned in financial year 2017.
During the period, Stanbic holdings total assets rose 16.01 percent to Sh290.57 billion, supported by its loan book and cash deposited with the Central Bank of Kenya