African Bank’s Top Shareholder Apologizes After Loss
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African Bank Investments Ltd.’s largest shareholder, Coronation Fund Managers Ltd., apologized to investors and said it had learned a “sobering lesson” after its stake in the failed lender was wiped out.
South Africa’s central bank put Abil, as it’s known, into curatorship, akin to Chapter 11 bankruptcy, on Aug. 10 after the lender said it needed at least 8.5 billion rand ($800 million) of capital to survive. Abil’s shares were suspended on Aug. 11 after the South African Reserve Bank split the firm into a “good” bank and a “bad” book, and arranged for institutions to underwrite a 10 billion-rand capital increase.