Standard Bank Set To Invest $200million In Nigeria
August 30th, 2006 mishacko || mishacko@yahoo.co.uk
By Mishack Okpara
One of Africa’s biggest financial institution, Standard Bank, is set to invest about N26 billion ($200 million) in Nigeria by next year. This, according to the bank’s Chief Executive, Investment Banking, Mr. Craig Bond, is in addition to the $185 million brought in last year in order to scale CBN’s banks consolidation hurdle. The plan also follows projections that Nigeria could become Africa’s biggest economy in 15 years. Standard Bank is South Africa’s fourth largest company.
Mr. Bond made the disclosure at a roundtable session of the just concluded Nigeria Business Forum held at the bank’s Simmonds Street headquarters’ boardroom in Johannesburg. ” We have done our due diligence and because we have rejected all fancy deals and insist on servicing all strata of the Nigerian society, what you would have in the next couple of years is a people-empowering bank that would have contributed the most to real growth in Nigeria. We want to use our huge financial base to support tourism in Nigeria. It is happening in Uganda, it has happened in South Africa. Banking, the sort we are looking at in Nigeria, makes tourism work.”
Standard Bank, Bond noted further, is still considering the acquisition of one of the fasted growing banks in Nigeria, after it ran into disagreements with Standard Chartered Bank over technicalities in name registration that has forced it to operate in Nigeria as Standard Bank Investment Corporation (STANBIC). It hopes to own 51 per cent of any bank acquired in Nigeria.
Supported by Mr. Chris B-Newson, the bank’s Director and Head of Institutional and Corporate Banking in Africa, Bond said that the plan is for Standard Bank to have 45 branches nationwide and be among the top five biggest banks in Nigeria.
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