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Simon Tiemtoré's Vista Group has received regulatory approval to acquire a majority stake in Chad's Banque agricole et commerciale, a deal that marks the Burkina Faso-led banking group's first move into Central Africa and continues one of the more ambitious expansion pushes in African financial services.
Chad's finance ministry confirmed the approval. The number of shares changing hands and the financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. It was also not made clear whether the deal involves a capital increase or the transfer of existing shares. Vista plans to rebrand the acquired lender as Vista Bank Tchad once the transaction closes.
Founded in 1998, BAC finances agricultural and commercial activities across Chad. The bank's footprint in the local market is modest: its credit market share stood at just 0.39% in the first quarter of 2025, according to data from the Bank of Central African States. Chad's banking sector currently counts 10 active institutions.
The gap between what the sector offers and what the population needs is wide. The African Development Bank's 2025 country report put formal banking access in Chad at roughly 15% of the population. Credit to the private sector sits below 10% of gross domestic product, compared with a sub-Saharan African average of more than 30%. The banks that do operate there are mostly focused on short-term financing, leaving significant demand unmet across agriculture, trade and small business lending.
That is exactly the kind of market Vista has built its strategy around. Since Tiemtoré set up Lilium Capital in New York in 2016 and used it to acquire a struggling Gambian bank called First International Banking Group, the group has moved steadily across West and now Central Africa by targeting underpenetrated markets and taking over distressed or departing institutions.
The pattern is consistent. When BNP Paribas began its exit from sub-Saharan Africa, Vista stepped in to acquire its stakes in banks in Burkina Faso and Guinea. When Société Générale sold its Burkina Faso subsidiary in 2023, Vista was again the buyer. The group now operates in six countries including Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Mozambique and now Chad, with a stated ambition to reach 25 countries across the continent.
Tiemtoré himself is a lawyer turned investment banker who spent time at Skadden Arps, PwC and Morgan Stanley in New York before joining the African Export-Import Bank in Cairo as head of corporate finance and advisory services. He left Afreximbank in 2015 and co-founded Lilium Capital with analyst Didier Nkieré, initially targeting investments in hospitality and real estate before pivoting toward banking as the major opportunity revealed itself.
His thesis was straightforward: the exits of large European banks from the continent were creating ownership vacuums that a well-capitalised and operationally capable African-led group could fill. That thesis has largely proven correct. The retreats of BNP Paribas and Société Générale from multiple West African markets opened doors that Vista has walked through repeatedly.
The Chad acquisition represents a geographic shift as much as a financial one. Vista has been almost entirely a West African story until now, operating within the ECOWAS and WAEMU monetary zones where regulatory frameworks are relatively familiar. The CEMAC zone, which covers Chad and five other Central African countries, is a different regulatory environment. Navigating it successfully will require building new relationships with the Bank of Central African States and demonstrating that Vista's model translates across the currency and regulatory divide.
Vista also announced plans in July 2025 to launch banking operations in Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, with the Ivorian project described at the time as at an advanced stage. Together with Chad, those moves show a group trying to cover the continent's francophone markets comprehensively rather than consolidating in a smaller number of countries.
In January 2025, Tiemtoré obtained regulatory approval from France's banking supervisor to launch Vista Bank France, a move he said was intended to connect African markets with European capital and trade flows.
The BAC deal, modest in its current scale, is significant in its direction. Vista is crossing into a new regional monetary union, entering a market with deep unmet demand and low competition, and adding another territory to an expansion strategy that has moved faster than most observers expected when Tiemtoré first bought a small Gambian bank less than a decade ago.
