British-American Investments Kenya’s biggest publicly traded money manager, said it plans to buy Equity Bank Ltd.’s stake in Housing Finance Ltd. to help the mortgage lender expand its business.
The Nairobi-based company will pay a 10 percent premium on the 90-day volume-weighted average price of Housing Finance’s stock preceding the share-sale agreement, it said in a statement published in the Standard newspaper today. Britam’s stake in the company will increase to 46.1 percent and it plans to seek exemption from making a takeover offer, according to the statement.
Britam “has the financial and managerial capacity to support Housing Finance in delivering its long-term strategic objective of becoming a one-stop shop offering integrated solutions across the entire value chain,” it said.
Britam is selling as much 6 billion shillings ($68 million) of bonds to help finance an expansion that will include the acquisition of stakes in companies, investment in property development and increasing the capital of units outside Kenya, Chief Executive Officer Benson Wairegi said June 11. Housing Finance is Kenya’s only publicly traded mortgage lender.
