The announcement comes one week after the bank convened a
meeting of shareholders at the order of a court as part of the last key stages
of the corporate reformation.
The lender will become known as Sterling Financial Holdings
Company when the transition is delivered, according to a regulatory filing seen
on the Nigerian Exchange Limited’s website.
Embracing a holdco structure confers on Sterling Bank the
leverage to make inroads into other sectors within financial services apart
from commercial banking which its current license and those of many lenders in
Nigeria do not allow.
Such sectors, comprising pension; asset management; payments
and fintech, are gaining appeal among banks and provide chances for
diversification as competition for interest income, which accounts for the bulk
of the revenue of the banking industry turns increasingly fierce.
Stanbic IBTC Holdings, one of the early birds that adopted
the holdco structure, is a testament that the holdco structure is a model that
works. Its pension unit controls around one third of the N14.2 trillion assets
under management as the market leader of the Nigerian pension industry.
With the key resolutions for the scheme of arrangement now
approved, the transition will proceed to its final phase where regulators
including the Central Bank of Nigeria are to sanction the new entity into
existence.
“The bank will transfer all the assets, liabilities and
undertakings related to the non-interest banking business to The Alternative
Bank Limited,” the statement said in reference to its newest subsidiary that
received an approval-in-principle in December.
Sterling Bank’s issued and paid-up share capital valued at
28.8 billion outstanding shares will passé to the holding company in exchange
for the allotment of those same units to shareholders on completion.
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