15 August 2008
Nairobi — Co-operative Bank initial public offering will be steered by local investment bank, Dyer & Blair.
The firm was on Friday picked to oversee the Sh10 billion IPO, the largest non-privatisation issue.
Despite persistence by IMF that the bank together with State-owned institutions be privatised, the institution is still owned by co-operatives.
For Dyer & Blair, it is second time lucky. In May, they were joint lead advisors for Safaricom IPO which is the largest privatisation offering in the history of East Africa.
Other players are investment banks -- rather familiar in the IPO and secondary offering markets -- which may confirm a trend where ordinary brokers have been reduced to mere spectators.
A tentative timetable shows that the IPO will be launched on October 20, 2008. Documents are set for lodging with the Capital Markets Authority and Nairobi Stock Exchange on September 15.
"Upon approval of the IPO by the CMA we invite all Kenyans to plan and invest in Co-op Bank shares to share in the continuing great fortunes of the Bank," said CEO Gideon Muriuki.
Standard Investment Bank was appointed lead sponsoring brokers together with Faida Investment Bank. The two had responded to the tender for consultancy under the SIBFIB consortium.
CFC Financial Services together with Discount Securities, Sterling Investment and African Alliance will be co-sponsoring brokers.
Ernst &Young will be the reporting accountants with Mboya & Wangong'u the legal advisors. Maclem Valuers Ltd will value the issue.
Second time lucky also is Gina Din Corporate Communications, fresh from the historic Safaricom IPO. Marketing and advertising will be left to Ayton & Young Rubicam.
Co-op Bank in what is billed as the second largest IPO in Kenya intends to raise Sh20 billion to aid its expansion.
The bank ranked number four in assets' size is projecting to make a pre-tax profit of Sh3.2 billion this year after progressively recovering from the loss-making period of 2001.
At the time, saddled with bad debts arising from the poor fortunes of the coffee industry and the impact of the 1998 bombing which damaged its headquarters, it returned Sh2.3 billion in loss.
Last year, the bank which serves the seven-million member co-operative movement made a turnaround attributed to change of management.
The new management ushered in a team of technocrats , saw cleaning of the balance sheet and reforms in the co-operative movement.
It has a branch network of 52, eight opened in the past six months, and 20 more are planned before the end of the year.
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