Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GTBank) has announced that it has gotten approval-in-principle of the Central Bank of Nigeria to commence the formal process of the reorganisation of the bank to a holding company.
A notice filed by the bank at the Nigerian Stock Exchange said the reorganisation will be implemented by means of a scheme of arrangement between the bank and its shareholders pursuant to the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA).
The notice said the bank had also obtained the “No-objection” of the Security and Exchange Commission in connection with the proposed scheme.
“Under the restructuring, it is proposed that the issued shares in the bank be exchanged on a one-for-one basis for the shares in the financial holding company. The bank’s existing Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) are also proposed to be exchanged on a one-for-one basis for new GDRs to be issued by the financial holding company.
“The financial holding company will be regulated by the CBN as another financial institution and listed on the official list of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange,” the notice said.
“Concurrently, the bank will be delisted from the official list of the NSE and the LSE and re-registered as a private limited liability company under the relevant provisions of Nigeria’s corporate legislation. GTBank will continue to be subject to the full suite of CBN banking regulations, the notice adds.
The board of directors of GTBank were said to have made the decision to embark on the restructuring following a comprehensive strategic evaluation of the operating and competitive environment of the Nigerian banking sector in the near term.
Earlier in September, Nigeria’s biggest bank by customer base, Access bank, said it has received the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Approval-in-Principle to restructure its operations into a holding company (HoldCo) banking model.
