CBN Approves Sale Of Sterling Bank

Nigeria’s Central Bank said it will most probably allow an acquisition of Sterling Bank Plc by FirstRand, South Africa’s second-biggest financial services company, Bloomberg reported today.

“If they do reach an agreement that is mutually acceptable, we are most likely not to object to it,” Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria’s Central Bank governor, said in an interview at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town yesterday. “FirstRand spoke to me before they started speaking to Sterling. I did give them the go-ahead for them to talk.”

FirstRand has been considering buying a stake in a healthy Nigerian bank since 10 lenders failed an audit in 2009 and asset prices fell. Nigeria’s Central Bank then invited bidders for both healthy and distressed banks as it changed the West African nation’s banking system. FirstRand said on December 2 it plans to enter Nigeria, Tanzania, Angola, Ghana and Kenya.

Other Nigerian banks that are selling stakes include Intercontinental Bank, Union Bank, Afribank and Finbank, according to Sanusi.

“Finbank has signed, I believe they’ll be announcing this week,” he said.

FirstRand is expanding its investment banking, retail and insurance offerings across a continent with more than 1 billion people.