Titan Trust Bank Limited has completed the acquisition of Nigeria’s second-oldest lender, Union Bank of Nigeria. This was revealed in a regulatory filing.
The 3-year-old bank will get 89.4 per cent stake from exiting major investors, including British Virgin Islands-based Atlas Mara and Union Global Partners Limited, but later upped the stake to 93.4 per cent.
“With the completion of the transaction, TGI Group, parent of TTB, now becomes the majority shareholder and core investor in Union Bank,” the document said.
The ownership transfer excludes Union Bank UK, a subsidiary of Union Bank of Nigeria, which was sold off, with the proceeds of divestment to all the shareholders of the latter as of March 4, 2022.
In the spirit of the change of ownership, ten of the thirteen members of Union Bank’s board have exited the bank including CEO Emeka Okonkwo, who has spent barely a year at the helms and the chair, Beatrice Hamza Bassey.
The three persons that survived the shake-up are Omolola Cardoso and Joseph Mbulu (both of them executive directors) as well as Aisha Abubakar, an independent non-executive director.
“Earlier today we reached a significant milestone with the Completion, after regulatory approvals, of the epoch-making transaction announced in December 2021 between the Bank’s core shareholders and Titan Trust Bank,” Ms Bassey said.
“As is normal for transactions such as this, the current board and CEO Emeka Okonkwo retired and handed over reins of the Bank to a new Board and to Mudassir Amray as CEO,” she added.
The acquisition eases the path for Titan Trust Bank to become Nigeria’s sixth-biggest lender, with Union Bank’s assets climbing in valuation to N2.6 trillion at the end of 2021 and Titan’s standing at N136 billion as of December 2020.
