Business: African Bank signs a R8bn aid deal with shareholders

Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 08:25 am

African Bank stated on Monday that it had entered into an R8 billion help arrangement with its shareholders to re-enter the South African wholesale funding market.

The bank, which is a one hundred percentage subsidiary of African Bank Holdings Limited (ABHL), said the support amenities would be supplied over a length of three years and 4 months from December.

African Bank used to be recapitalised with new equity of R10bn after it collapsed in 2014 and was once placed underneath a curatorship.

The largest shareholders now encompass the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), which holds a 50 percentage stake, and the Government Employees Pension Fund, with a 25 percent stake.

South African banks keep the last 25 percentage stake.

The guide association comes after the SARB informed African Bank Holdings in February about its intention to dispose of its 50 percentage stake in the bank and open the way for a long-term sustainable shareholder that used to be better aligned to the bank’s boom aspirations.

The SARB obtained the shareholding in ABHL in 2016 as phase of the restructuring of African Bank after the bank was once placed underneath curatorship.

The central bank furnished a R5bn capital injection to refinance the group’s operations. African Bank chief economic officer Gustav Raubenheimer said these aid arrangements should grant further relief and self assurance to South African funders for future funding requirements.

“The financial institution does now not right now require any additional wholesale funding or multiplied liquidity and we do no longer anticipate a requirement to enter the domestic wholesale funding market in 2020 for any listed issuance, notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic,” Raubenheimer said.

(IOL)