TANZANIA BILLIONAIRES BUY EQUITY BANK STAKE

An Equity Bank branch. Two Tanzanian billionaires have bought seven million shares of Equity Group worth Ksh344 million ($3.4 million).

Tanzanian billionaires Aunali and Sajjad Rajabali have bought seven million shares of Equity Group worth Ksh344 million ($3.4 million), expanding their investment in Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firms.

Their purchase of the bank’s stock is disclosed in the lender’s May regulatory filing of its ownership structure.

The duo has invested more than Ksh1.5 billion ($14.8 million) in NSE-listed firms over the past two years, taking significant stakes in companies such as Co-op Bank, KenolKobil, Jubilee Holdings and I&M Holdings.

The Rajabalis are now ranked seventh in Equity’s list of top individual investors with a 0.19 per cent stake.

Most efficient bank

Equity has cemented its position as the country’s most efficient bank with an annualised return on equity (RoE) of 28.5 per cent after reporting a 21.4 per cent growth in net profit to Ksh5.8 billion ($57.4 million) in the first quarter ended March.

The lender’s performance, anchored on its retail banking success, has attracted major global investors.

“The bank differentiates itself from its peers through its large retail customer base with nearly half of all bank accounts in Kenya,” London-based asset manager Blackrock Frontiers Investment Trust Plc, which holds Equity shares worth Ksh1.5 billion ($14.8 million), says in a regulatory filing.

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