RABAT (Reuters) – Banque Populaire, Morocco’s second-biggest lender by market value, said on Friday it had agreed to offer 5 percent of its capital to the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) under a strategic partnership agreement.
Banque Populaire will offer the stake to IFC as part of a 5 percent capital increase that values Populaire’s stock at 201 dirhams ($22.57) per share, the Moroccan company said in a statement.
The deal is aimed mainly at helping Populaire’s expansion plans in Africa when needed and facilitating access to credit facilities IFC provides to finance small and medium enterprises, Populaire said, amid an acute shortage of liquidity in the domestic market. ($1 = 8.9040 Moroccan dirhams) (Reporting By Souhail Karam; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)
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