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Access Holdings, the parent company of Nigeria's largest bank by assets, has announced it will reduce its equity stakes in some of its foreign subsidiaries after the Central Bank of Nigeria issued a new rule capping Nigerian banks' equity investments in overseas units at no more than 10% of total shareholders' funds, Bloomberg reported on May 5.
Roosevelt Ogbonna, chief executive of Access Bank, the group's flagship banking subsidiary, disclosed the requirement and the compliance timeline on an investor call in Lagos on Tuesday. The bank has 12 months to bring its foreign equity exposures into line with the new regulatory limit.
The announcement marks a significant reversal in trajectory for one of Africa's most aggressive banking expansion stories. Access Holdings has built a presence across at least 24 countries through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, including 3 major deals closed in 2025 alone: a 74.9% stake in Standard Chartered Bank's Gambian subsidiary for N9.5 billion ($6.9 million), Standard Chartered's consumer and business banking unit in Tanzania for N14 billion ($10.2 million), and a 76% stake in AfrAsia Bank in Mauritius through Access Bank UK for N611.1 billion ($444.4 million).
What the rule means in practice
Access Holdings reported total shareholders' equity of approximately N4.253 trillion ($3.09 billion) at the end of 2025. A 10% cap on foreign equity investments would limit the total amount the group can hold in overseas banking subsidiaries to approximately N425.3 billion ($309 million). The AfrAsia Bank Mauritius acquisition alone cost N611.1 billion, a figure that exceeds the entire 10% cap on its own. Access Bank UK, which together with the Nigerian parent contributed 89.2% of the group's 2025 bottom line, is also likely to carry a book value well above the permitted threshold.
The practical implication is that Access Holdings cannot maintain its current ownership levels across its entire international network under the new regulatory framework. It will need to identify which subsidiaries to reduce its stake in, find buyers willing to acquire those stakes at appropriate valuations and execute the transactions within 12 months. Whether it plans to bring specific subsidiaries below majority control or to pursue outright divestments of smaller operations is not yet clear from Ogbonna's investor call disclosure.
The CBN's rationale
The Central Bank of Nigeria under Governor Olayemi Cardoso has been tightening governance and capital requirements across the Nigerian banking sector since taking office in 2023. The recapitalisation exercise that required banks to meet higher minimum capital thresholds concluded in early 2026, with Access Holdings completing a rights issue that raised substantial new equity.
The 10% cap on foreign equity investments appears to be aimed at ensuring that Nigerian banks' capital base supports domestic lending rather than being deployed to fund overseas expansion. By limiting the proportion of shareholders' funds that can be tied up in foreign subsidiaries, the CBN is effectively signalling that it views the Nigerian domestic market as the primary obligation of licensed Nigerian banks, with international operations treated as secondary rather than co-equal with home market activity.
The timing is notable. Nigerian banks have been on an unprecedented international acquisition spree over the past 3 years, partly driven by attractive asset prices as European banking groups retreated from sub-Saharan African markets and partly by the strategic ambition of becoming pan-African financial institutions. Access Holdings' acquisition of AfrAsia Bank in Mauritius, Standard Chartered's Gambia and Tanzania consumer units were all executed within the past 12 months. The CBN's new rule arrives just as that wave of acquisition activity was reaching its most expensive phase.
Access Holdings' position
The group posted a record N743 billion ($540 million) in profit after tax for 2025, confirming that its international footprint has been commercially productive at the group level. Access Bank Nigeria and Access Bank UK together accounted for 89.2% of that bottom line, however, while its South African unit lost N21.7 billion and its Kenyan operation lost N12.2 billion. The subsidiaries that are generating the most losses are also, potentially, the ones whose book value is lowest relative to what the group has invested in them.
Ogbonna did not specify on the investor call which subsidiaries would be subject to sell-downs, what valuations Access Holdings would target or whether the CBN had given any guidance on acceptable transaction structures. The 12-month window gives the group time to approach this methodically, but it is not a generous timeline for executing material transactions in multiple African banking jurisdictions simultaneously.
The announcement adds another dimension to the regulatory pressure that has already resulted in Access Holdings withholding its final dividend for FY2025, as the CBN required full provisioning of non-performing loans, including significant Nestoil-related exposure, before permitting shareholder distributions.
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