Deals
Nedbank Hunting for Kenyan Acquisition as Parent Mulls Exit Plan
- Lender sees opportunities after three Kenyan bank failures
- Old Mutual Emerging Markets ‘natural long-term holder’ of bank
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Nedbank Group Ltd., the South African lender being spun off from parent Old Mutual Plc, said it’s in talks that may lead to the acquisition of a Kenyan bank as it seeks to benefit from an economic growth rate that’s double the average for the rest of the continent.
“Within the next 12 months we’ll certainly be looking to do a deal,” Mfundo Nkuhlu, chief operating officer of Johannesburg-based Nedbank, said in an interview at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Kigali, Rwanda on Friday. “Some of the wobbling that the Kenyan banking sector has gone through points to the fact that there will be some clean up and perhaps the clean up leads to consolidation. Which, if you’re sitting on the outside, presents an opportunity.”