Reuters
Ivory Coast has agreed to sell an additional 24 percent stake in the country’s Societe Ivoirienne de Banque (SIB) to Attijariwafa Bank in a deal that will increase the Moroccan bank’s stake to 75 percent, an Ivorian government spokesman said.
Ivory Coast, the world’s biggest cocoa grower, announced plans in 2013 to sell stakes in 15 companies, including the national telecoms operator, banks, agribusiness and a gold mine.
At the time, the government valued its 49 percent stake in SIB at 4.9 billion CFA francs ($8 million).
“The state has decided to definitively cede 24 percent of its 49 percent to Attijariwafa Bank,” Bruno Kone told journalists on Wednesday following a cabinet meeting in the commercial capital Abidjan.
He did not say how much Attijariwafa would pay for the shares.
Attijariwafa will temporarily acquire an additional 12 percent in SIB that will then be made available to Ivorian investors via West Africa’s regional BRVM bourse.
Of the state’s remaining shares, five percent will be retained, five percent will be reserved for an Ivorian institutional investor and three percent will be ceded to SIB’s Ivorian employees.
($1 = 612.5000 CFA francs)
(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by James Macharia)
