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NewsDay

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Atlas Mara completes acquisition of shares from former executives

Business
ATLAS Mara has completed the acquisition of the remaining 414 455 shares held by three former BancABC executives who left the institution at the end of December as it consolidates its grip on the pan-African banking group.

ATLAS Mara has completed the acquisition of the remaining 414 455 shares held by three former BancABC executives who left the institution at the end of December as it consolidates its grip on the pan-African banking group.

BY OUR STAFF

The three former executives — group CEO Douglas Munatsi, group chief operating officer Francis Dzanya and group chief finance officer Beki Moyo — stepped down following the acquisition of BancABC by Atlas Mara.

Atlas Mara has 98,7% shareholding in the pan-African banking group with operations in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania.

The trio held 1 743 888 shares and was supposed to sell to Atlas Mara at a price of $10 per share.

In a recent notice, Atlas Mara said: “Following the share buyback update on 23 January 2015, Atlas Mara Ltd (‘Atlas Mara or the ‘Company’) announces that on 3 February 2015, it completed the purchase of the remaining 414 455 Atlas Mara shares from certain of the previous managers of ABC Holdings Limited (’BancABC’).”

Last month, Atlas Mara announced that it had bought 1 329 433 shares from the departed executives.

The purchased shares will be held as treasury shares. Treasury shares can be sold to the public in future when the company sees the time as beneficial.

Experts say selling treasury shares to the public can be a less expensive way for the company to raise capital because the amount it spent issuing them previously is a sunk cost.

The repurchase of the shares by Atlas Mara was supposed to have been completed in December. Atlas Mara later said that it had experienced administrative delays in completing the purchase of the shares from the departing executives.

As part of their exit, the three former executives were also granted options over a total of 1 521 838 ordinary shares.

The options have a strike price of $12 per share and are also subject to certain repurchase obligations.These options were previously agreed with the management team at the time of the initial acquisition of BancABC.

In connection with the former management team’s departure, BancABC expects to incur a one-time net charge to income of approximately $5,8 million in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Atlas Mara — co-founded by former Barclays Plc chief executive officer Bob Diamond and billionaire entrepreneur Ashish Thakkar — wants to establish a premier financial institution in sub — Saharan Africa. To date, the company has bought into banks in Rwanda and Nigeria.