After announcing last week that it will acquire two banks in Rwanda and Tanzania, the Kenyan banking group KCB Groupe Plc intends to continue this expansion. The banking establishment said, according to internal sources on Tuesday, December 1, that it will acquire a bank in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) again in the next two years.
This operation will take place after the finalization of the acquisition of Banque Populaire du Rwanda Plc (BPR) and African Banking Corporation Tanzania (BancABC). A transaction that will allow KCB to hold 62.06% of the capital of BPR, or $ 32 million, and 100% of the capital of BancABC, or $ 8 million.
Its entry into the DRC banking market, which boasts more than 84 million consumers, will mark KCB’s seventh market outside Kenya. Speaking on this issue, the group’s CEO, Joshua Oigara, confirmed that his structure will be present in the DRC by 2022.
The official also stressed that the bank will continue to seek transactions that fit into the group’s expansion strategy. A plan that aims to increase the share of KCB subsidiaries in total revenue to at least 25% in the next two years, from 10% currently.
This new acquisition in Congo will rekindle competition between the two rivals KCB and Equity Group. The latter, last August, bought a 66.5% stake in Banque Commerciale Du Congo (BCDC) through a cash transaction of 10.3 billion shillings (93.5 million dollars).
As a reminder, the net profits of KCB subsidiaries, increased by 9.8%, from 1.63 billion shillings (14.8 million dollars) in 2020 against 1.79 billion shillings (16.2 million dollars) for the past year.
