ATLAS Mara, an investment company co-owned by former Barclays Plc chief executive Bob Diamond, has increased its shareholding of the Pan-African financial services group ABC Holdings to nearly 99 percent after buying out local and Botswana minority shareholders in the group.
Atlas Mara, which already held 95,84 percent of ABC’s shareholding, in September made an offer to the minorities and said it would delist from the Zimbabwe and Botswana bourses after becoming a privately owned company.
The offer was for BWP7.49 as at September 15, for each ABC Holdings share listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE), and $0.82 per ABC Holdings share listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) held by the minority shareholders.
“Further to the mandatory public offer to the shareholders of ABC Holdings Limited of 22 September 2014, Atlas Mara Co-Nvest Limited (Atlas Mara) achieved a total of 98.7 percent ownership in BancABC,” the company said in a statement.
At the expiry of the accepting period on November7, Atlas Mara said it acquired an additional 7,040,997  shares in the company or 2.74 percent of the total shares in issue.
Of the tendered shares, 2,389,255 or 0.93 percent were acquired from shares listed  on the BSE and a further 4,651,742 shares or 1.81 percent were listed on the ZSE.
Atlas Mara combines Diamond’s Atlas Merchant Capital LLC and African entrepreneur Ashish Thakkar’s Mara Group Holdings Limited.
BancABC has presence in Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.Advertisement