{"id":17468,"date":"2020-11-12T21:17:54","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T21:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/kenya\/?p=17468"},"modified":"2020-11-12T21:17:54","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T21:17:54","slug":"equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender","title":{"rendered":"Equity Group eyes regional footprint after buying Congo lender"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Author:\u00a0REUTERS\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>AfricaPress-Kenya:<\/strong> Equity Group\u2019s acquisition of Congo\u2019s Banqu\u00e9 Commerciale du Congo will help it grow its balance sheet to Sh1 trillion (USD9 billion) by the end of 2020 and diversify into a regional bank, chief executive James Mwangi said.<\/p>\n<p>The deal between Equity\u2019s operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and BCDC was completed in August and has accelerated the bank\u2019s goal of having 40 per cent of its balance sheet outside of Kenya, Mwangi said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis year, 40 per cent of our assets will be outside, reducing the sovereign risk and truly becoming a regional bank,\u201d he told Reuters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBCDC and Equity combined together would be a USD2.5 billion balance sheet by the end of this year, and that is how we see a line of sight to a trillion shilling balance sheet by the end of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Equity also operates in Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Uganda, and has a representative office in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n<p>Like other commercial banks in Kenya, Equity\u2019s profits have taken a hit due to effects of COVID-19, leading to a 20 per cent drop in pretax profit to 19.8 billion shillings (USD181.57 million) in the first nine months of 2020, it said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The bank\u2019s loan loss provisions grew 11-fold to 14.3 billion shillings in the same period. The bank obtained a USD600 million credit line to ensure that the cash flow that could have come from rescheduled loans was maintained, Mwangi said, without giving details of the credit line\u2019s source.<\/p>\n<p>COVID-19 containment measures have hurt businesses and affected about 45 per cent of the bank\u2019s customers, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe gave &#8230; the customers rescheduled facilities to ensure that none of them failed because of loan repayment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The bank reported a 30 per cent growth in its loan book to 453.9 billion shillings at the end of September 2020 from 348.9 at the same time last year, helped by demand for credit for online businesses, manufacturers of personal protective equipment, logistics firms and agro-processors, Mwangi said.<\/p>\n<p>(USD1 = 109.0500 Kenyan shillings)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Author:\u00a0REUTERS\u00a0 AfricaPress-Kenya: Equity Group\u2019s acquisition of Congo\u2019s Banqu\u00e9 Commerciale du Congo will help it grow its balance sheet to Sh1 trillion (USD9 billion) by the end of 2020 and diversify into a regional bank, chief executive James Mwangi said. The deal between Equity\u2019s operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and BCDC was completed in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":17464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,8],"tags":[6458,6457,4855],"class_list":["post-17468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","tag-banque-commerciale-du-congo","tag-bcdc","tag-james-mwangi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Equity Group eyes regional footprint after buying Congo lender - kenya<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Equity Group\u2019s acquisition of Congo\u2019s Banqu\u00e9 Commerciale du Congo will help it grow its balance sheet to Sh1 trillion (USD9 billion) by the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Equity Group eyes regional footprint after buying Congo lender\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Equity Group\u2019s acquisition of Congo\u2019s Banqu\u00e9 Commerciale du Congo will help it grow its balance sheet to Sh1 trillion (USD9 billion) by the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"kenya\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-12T21:17:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2020\/11\/equity_eyes_regional5fad20ae3e36c.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"769\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"709\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Equity Group eyes regional footprint after buying Congo lender\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-12T21:17:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender\"},\"wordCount\":347,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2020\/11\/equity_eyes_regional5fad20ae3e36c.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Banqu\u00e9 Commerciale du Congo\",\"BCDC\",\"James Mwangi\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/economy\/equity-group-eyes-regional-footprint-after-buying-congo-lender\",\"name\":\"Equity Group eyes regional footprint after buying Congo lender - 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