Kenya's Top Buyer of Banks Is Now Looking Ahead to Profits
- SBM chairman sees healthy margins; may list Kenyan unit later
- Mauritian lender purchased two Kenyan banks in past 12 months
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SBM Holdings Ltd., the Mauritius lender that bought two Kenyan banks within months of each other, expects the combined operations to make a profit within a year.
The second-biggest lender in the Indian Ocean island-nation is expanding in East Africa’s largest economy to use it as a hub for the rest of the region as part of a broader strategy funded by debt to add assets in its home market, Madagascar and Seychelles. The push into Kenya comes even as banks struggle to stem a drop in earnings spurred by a limit on interest-rate charges that has also caused lending to grind almost to a halt.