Atlas Mara, the African bank co-founded by former Barclays boss Bob Diamond, said it remains on the hunt for more deals and may double the number of countries it operates in after swinging to its first profit.
Reuters
Atlas Mara, co-founded by Diamond and entrepreneur Ashish Thakkar in 2013 with the aim of building sub-Saharan Africa’s leading bank, said on Thursday it expected to increase its presence to 10-15 countries in the medium term.
After a series of deals it has operations or interests in seven countries including Botswana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. It estimated that fewer than 15 countries account for about 90 percent of banking revenues in sub-Saharan Africa.
It said it continued to “evaluate further acquisitions” to expand, and was still in talks to buy a substantial stake in Banque Populaire du Rwanda.
The London-listed company’s shares are down more than 40 percent from their $10 listing price as concerns have been raised about the challenges of banking in some countries and Atlas Mara’s corporate governance. At 0810 GMT its shares were up 1.3 percent at $5.80, valuing the company at $410 million.
Atlas Mara reported a pretax profit of $4.1 million for the first six months of this year, compared to a loss of $63.1 million for 2014.
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The bank said it expected the second half of the year to improve from the first half, but Zimbabwe continued to be a challenging market. Chief Executive John Vitalo said he shared “the frustration of our investors with respect to recent share price performance” and would address investor concerns, improve communication and try to encourage more liquidity in its stock.
