Some stakeholders in the financial sector have said that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, induced recapitalization may have pushed FBN Holdings Plc to divest from FBNQuest Merchant Bank.

Recall that recently, the FBN Holdings announced divestment of its 100 percent stake in FBNQuest Merchant Bank in a sale to EverQuest Acquisition, a consortium comprised of Custodian Investments Plc, Aion Investments and Evercorp Industries.

Commenting on the development, Boniface Okezie, Chairman, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, PSAN, said: "I think for the bank to have two licenses is not good for them. So they may have decided to do away with the Merchant Bank and hold on to their famous commercial bank and use the proceeds from the divestment to put into other area of needs for the Group.

"They have Trustees and other channels of their business that demand immediate attention. Especially the bank needs to shore up its capital base to meet the CBN new capital requirement at this point in time. I also believe that price must be right. "It is a good decision to concentrate on the other area of needs of the Holding Group."

Also commenting, Tajudeen Olayinka, Investment Banker & Stockbroker, said: "If we must draw from history of the group, they did something similar to that in 2005 when they chose to merge FBN Merchant Bank Limited and First Bank Plc with Merchant Banking Corporation, known then as MBC Bank, to meet CBN's recapitalisation deadline.

So, the only explanation I have is that FBN Holdings Plc does not want to stress itself beyond existing capacity to raise capital for the two banking subsidiaries if the end result will not justify the means, or simply put, if the end result will not improve the earnings' prospect of the group."

In a statement sent to the Nigerian Exchange, NGX Limited signed by Adewale Arogundade, acting company secretary of FBN Holdings, the company clarified that its subsidiaries like FBNQuest Capital Ltd. and FBNQuest Asset Management Ltd are not part of the deal.

According to FBN Holdings, the divestment pertains solely to FBNQuest Merchant Bank, with no impact on the continued operations or strategic positioning of its other subsidiaries within the group.