Senegalese billionaire Yerim Sow's Bridge Bank sells out $118 million offer in a day

Bridge Bank Group Côte d'Ivoire raised the full $118 million (67.5 billion CFA francs) it sought on the first day of its share offer, closing subscriptions within 24 hours of opening them and more than two weeks ahead of schedule.

The Ivorian lender controlled by Senegalese billionaire Yerim Sow opened the sale on July 20 with a window running to August 6. It confirmed the early closure in a statement on July 21, citing strong mobilisation among subscribers. Demand reached the target on day one, with heavy participation from retail investors.

The offer covered 10 million shares at 6,750 CFA francs ($11.80) each, representing 20 percent of a capital divided into 50 million shares. The price was struck at 16.875 times the nominal value of 400 CFA francs.

The pension fund held its ground

The shares came from Bridge Group West Africa, the financial holding company through which Sow's Teyliom Group controls the bank. Its stake falls to 57 percent from 77 percent.

What did not move matters as much as what did. Côte d'Ivoire's state social security fund, the Caisse Nationale de Prévoyance Sociale, kept its 20 percent without selling a single share, leaving individual shareholders at 3 percent and the free float at 20 percent. The decision by the reference institutional investor to stay put lent weight to the valuation and framed the transaction as an opening of capital rather than an exit by existing owners.

Bridge Securities, the group subsidiary led by Myriam Ouattara, arranged the offer and acted as lead manager. The West African Economic and Monetary Union Financial Markets Authority approved it on June 26 under visa number AO/26-03.

Settlement is scheduled for August 21, with the shares expected to begin trading on the Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières on September 14.

Money earmarked for a regional build-out

The proceeds fund a specific expansion plan rather than general balance sheet repair. The bank intends to convert its Senegalese branch, opened in 2021 and operational since 2022, into a full banking subsidiary capitalised at a minimum of 20 billion CFA francs ($35 million). A subsidiary in Guinea is scheduled to open in January 2027, and a branch in Burkina Faso in the first half of that year, subject to regulatory approval.

The moves sit within a 2026 to 2030 strategic plan aimed at turning the bank into a fully regionalised group. Remaining funds are directed at strengthening equity, financing small and medium-sized businesses and continuing a digital overhaul. The bank already operates in Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Mali, having entered the Malian market in 2024.

Twenty years from an SME lender

Bridge Bank marked its twentieth year in 2026. It began in 2006 lending to small and medium-sized businesses and broadened into larger corporates, public-sector entities, financial institutions and affluent retail customers, building around higher-touch service rather than mass retail scale.

It reported 2025 net income of 27.2 billion CFA francs ($47.6 million), up 19 percent, with net banking income rising 15 percent to 68 billion CFA francs ($118.9 million) and a cost-to-income ratio of 41.8 percent. Its balance sheet total exceeds 1,427 billion CFA francs, about $2.49 billion. First-quarter 2026 net banking income rose 23 percent year on year to 16 billion CFA francs ($28 million), with net profit up 48 percent to 8 billion ($14 million).

Managing director Ehouman Kassi has pointed to Côte d'Ivoire's national development plan, which projects growth near 7 percent, and the BRVM's 25 percent advance during 2025 as the conditions behind the timing. He described the listing as historic, noting that the last Ivorian bank to join the exchange did so in 2017.

A tale of two exchanges

The speed of the sale stands out against conditions elsewhere in francophone Africa. Agence Ecofin paired the Bridge Bank result with the struggles of Renaprov to attract subscriptions on the BVMAC, the Central African regional exchange, in the same period.

The contrast points to a widening gap between the two markets. The BRVM, which serves eight member states from Abidjan and where Bridge Bank becomes the 48th listed company, has been working to attract financial institutions to deepen a market where few banks are quoted. The ability of a banking share to absorb $118 million of demand in a single session, much of it from individual investors across the monetary union, suggests a liquidity pool larger than the exchange has been able to demonstrate in recent years.

The timetable had slipped considerably before reaching this point. Subscriptions were originally planned for late May with trading due to begin August 31, a schedule that depended on regulatory clearance that arrived only at the end of June.

Sow moved into telecoms in 1988 and founded Teyliom Group in 2001, expanding into property and hospitality in 2005. Private equity firm AfricInvest exited Bridge Group West Africa in 2022, selling its minority stake back to Teyliom Finance and simplifying the shareholder structure ahead of the listing.