Access Bank has signed a pact with Nairobi-headquartered National Bank of Kenya, setting the flagship subsidiary of Nigeria’s largest lender up for the ownership of the company, which has been in business since 1968.
The target bank was formerly controlled by the Kenyan Government but is now owned by KCB Group Plc, the parent of the country’s biggest commercial lender.
The deal is the first to be announced since the passing away last month of Herbert Wigwe, the erstwhile CEO of Access Bank’s parent company Access Holdings, who had been the driving force of the group’s peerless exploits in the continent’s M&A market among Nigerian banks.
