Access Holdings planned takeover of Kenya’s Sidian Bank aborted

Access Holdings will proceed no further with the bid to acquire a controlling stake in Sidian Bank Limited, headquartered in Kenya, Nigeria’s biggest lender said on Thursday, pulling the plug on a deal first announced barely half a year ago.

The corporation set out to purchase an interest of 83.4 per cent in the East African bank when, in early June, it said that it would actualise the plan through its commercial banking unit, Access Bank.

Centum Investment Company Plc, from which the stake was to be bought, is the parent company of Sidian Bank, with the deal estimated at $37 million. It was a binding agreement.

Consummating the bargain hung on either meeting some prerequisites or waiving them ahead of the “Long Stop date”, according to the terms.

“Although regulator have all been supportive in engagements around the transaction, certain conditions precedent needed to prudently complete the transaction have not been met,” Access Holdings said in a regulatory filing.

The corporation noted that “the parties were unable to reach agreement on the variation of these conditions in a manner to deliver the desired outcome for the parties.”

Until the deal fell through, the group had expected to combine the target with its Kenyan operation, Access Bank Kenya, in hopes of gaining more traction in that market.