advertisement

LAGOS—ACCESS Bank’s attempt to rank among the top three in Nigeria begins today with the opening of its N70 billion offer of subscription for 4,721,839, 130 units of shares at N14.90k for every 50k share.

advertisement

The public offer completes a three-phase capital raising strategy that started in 2005. The first phase entailed the issuance of a N6.75 billion ($50 million) Convertible Loan Stock targeted at DFIs while phase two consisted of the issuance of a N13.5 billion ($100 million) local currency Redeemable Convertible Bond. The third phase is the direct equity through a public offer for subscription which opens today.

The offer proceeds will provide financing for the bank’s growth objectives, including branch expansion (domestic and international branch roll-out); ICT; E-Channels A&TM roll-out.

The proceeds will also provide additional working capital to support enlarged operations and equity investment (local and offshore subsidiaries.)

A similar offer by the bank in 2004 recorded a 133 per cent subscription which equipped it to acquire two legacy banks (Marina International Bank and Capital Bank International) to scale the N25 billion CBN minimum capitalisation requirements of 2004. 

Access Bank currently ranks among the top 10 banks in Nigeria by asset and is the fastest growing bank in Nigeria, growing at a triple digit rate in total asset and contingents over the last five years. This was further buttressed by the audited reports of the bank for the year ended March 31, 2007, which showed that gross earnings grew by more than 100 per cent from N13 billion in 2006 to N27 billion in 2007.

Profit before tax also rose by a staggering 618 per cent from N1.1 billion in 2006 to N8.0 billion 2007, a growth of  618 per cent notwithstanding the huge write-off of goodwill and merger expenses of N7.5 billion that the bank recognised during the year.