The bank will seek lead transaction arranger roles within the debt capital markets across the region, taking advantage of the greater integration that has come with the push for the East Africa Community as a common market. This comes at a time Equity Bank prepares to open an investment bank targeting advisory deals among its existing clientele, especially the small and mid-sized business.
“We are yet to launch a fully-fledged investment bank, but we are working on it,” said Martin Oduor-Otieno, the chief executive of KCB. At stake are billions of shillings that deal-makers earn in transaction advisory fees in mergers and acquisitions as well as project financing deals.
Audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Standard Investment Bank, and Dyer & Blair Investment Bank clinched most of the deals last year. KCB said there was high demand for capital by governments in the region seeking funds for capital-intensive infrastructure projects, opening up a huge opportunity for deal makers.
Equity Bank, which closed its investment banking division in December 2009 after failing to clinch deals, is now changing tact and is targeting to offer services to its existing clientele rather than compete head-to-head with other investment banks for business.
“We are looking at an investment bank that advises our customer those who are graduating from micro to SME or SME to corporate,” said James Mwangi, the CEO of Equity Bank. “Basically a value-add to our existing clients as opposed to doing deals,” he said.
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