Why KCB Bank will buy this Imperial Bank for only ten shillings

Why KCB Bank will buy this Kenyan bank for only ten shillings

Tony Mukere

06 May 2019 12:52 PM

KCB set to expand with new acquisition

Kenya Commercial Bank boss Joshua Oigara

Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) is set to acquire the collapsed Imperial Bank for a mere ten shillings.

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The Country’s biggest bank, through CEO Joshua Oigara, said they considered Sh10 a fair value to acquire Imperial Bank which was placed under receivership in 2015 over fraud.

“Our cost in the Imperial Bank transaction is 10 US cents (Sh10). It’s a peppercorn (nominal) value,” Oigara said in a quote to the Business Daily.

In return, KCB will get Imperial Bank’s five branches and inherit some of the loans and client deposits.

The Sh10 payment is a made on a technical basis and is merely intended to validate the commercial contract.

In 2016,Kenya’s Fidelity Commercial Bank was auctioned at Sh100 by SBM Holdings of Mauritius in a deal requiring the new owner to inject Sh2 billion into the bank.

Imperial Bank’s take over has come at a time when one of its high-profile customers - Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu is in court over transactions with the bank.

Mwilu was a regular customer of the collapsed Imperial Bank and received at least Sh131 million in loans.

The transactions were part of the reasons the DPP and the DCI ordered for her arrest last year.

She is, however, yet to be formally charged as the High Court is yet to determine if the DCJ should be charged in a normal court or the matter should be adjudicated by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

Tony Mukere