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Nigeria’s biggest lender by assets, Access Holdings, has gotten the greenlight of the approving authority for the bid to acquire the controlling stake in First Guarantee Pension, the financial services group said Monday, after first announcing the deal three months and ten days ago.
If the transaction goes through, it will mark the corporation’s sixth takeover in barely one year, all of them but one involving banks outside its home country Nigeria, with its move to acquire Kenya-based Sidian Bank and the pension business of rival FBN Holdings already in the bag.
“This transaction is in line with our vision to create a globally connected community and ecosystem; inspired by Africa for the world,” CEO Herbert Wigwe said in a document seen by PREMIUM TIMES.
“We will deploy our renowned culture of strong risk management, innovative technology and best practice corporate governance to deliver high standards of management and returns on pension assets to the benefit of our stakeholders,” he added.
Access Holdings is restructuring its pension unit to shift away from custody business into fund management.
The former, involving guardianship of pension assets on trust for the benefit of contributors, no longer suits the future plan of the lender, prompting a pact with First Pension Custodian Nigeria Limited in a lead up to offloading its stake in Access Pension Fund Custodian Limited.
First Pension Custodian is a subsidiary of rival FBN Holdings.
The transaction, at consummation, enables Access Holdings to branch out into pension fund management, a market that topped the N14 trillion mark in July.
Access Corporation completed a metamorphosis into a holding company five months ago in March, meaning it now has the capacity to venture into other businesses within financial services outside it primary commercial banking business.
