Kenya’s largest bank by assets net profit for the full-year to December 2019 grew by 4.8 percent.
Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) posted profit to the tune of Sh25.1 billion ($251 million) compared to Sh23.99 billion ($239.9 million) the previous year bolstered by growth in interest income from consolidated book with National Bank of Kenya.
The lender's assets now stand at Sh898.5 billion ($8.985 billion) from Sh714.3 billion ($7.143 billion) edging it closer to the Sh1 trillion ($10 billion) psychological mark for the country's largest bank by assets.
KCB bought out National Bank of Kenya last year, injecting Sh5 billion ($50 million) of new capital in December to recapitalise the bank, which had breached critical capital ratios for years.
On Wednesday, KCB finally completed the compulsory buyout of dissenting minority shareholders of National Bank of Kenya (NBK) after issuing 4.4 million of its shares currently worth Sh212 million ($2.12 million) to the holdouts.
With the buyout KCB now has 15,360 more shares than it said it would end up with. The extra shares have a current market value of about Sh740,000.
Meanwhile, Co-operative Bank of Kenya plans to fully acquire the troubled small tier lender, Jamii Bora Bank.
“The board of directors of Co-operative Bank has approved the progression of discussions with Jamii Bora which, if successful, would lead to Co-op Bank acquiring 100 percent shareholding in Jamii Bora,” Co-op Bank said in a statement.
CBA Group unsuccessfully tried to acquire the lender last year. In January 2019, Jamii Bora received a cash offer of Sh1.4 billion ($140 million) from CBA but the deal was not completed.
CBA subsequently merged with NIC to form NCBA Group and dropped its interest in Jamii Bora.
The new Co-op interest, which requires regulatory approvals and whose details were not disclosed, will “diversify the business models of the two institutions and enhance the stability of the Kenyan banking sector”, according to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).
Jamii Bora has insufficient capital and has been looking for a buyer, partly under pressure from the CBK, which has preferred to shepherd mergers rather than shut down weak institutions.
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