Burkinabè billionaire Idrissa Nassa's Coris Bank commits $712 million to hospitals and schools

Coris Bank International, the West African lender controlled by Burkinabè billionaire Idrissa Nassa, has committed to mobilise $712 million (400 billion CFA francs) to build hospitals and schools in Burkina Faso, under a memorandum of understanding signed in Ouagadougou on Friday.

The money is earmarked for four regional university hospital centres, two vocational secondary schools, 13 preschool and primary establishments and 12 secondary schools offering mixed streams, according to the Bureau national des Grands Projets du Burkina, the state agency that manages the government's flagship construction programme.

Professor Hamidou Sawadogo, executive director of the bureau, signed for the state. Gisèle Gumedzoé, managing director of Coris Bank International, signed for the lender.

The sum is large relative to the bank itself. Coris Bank International's Burkina Faso entity, which trades on the regional BRVM exchange under the ticker CBIBF, closed at 20,700 CFA francs on May 22, the most recent quotation published by the exchange, giving it a market capitalisation of 662.4 billion CFA francs, about $1.18 billion. The commitment signed on Friday is equivalent to roughly three fifths of that figure. Dollar conversions are Billionaires.Africa calculations using the CFA franc's fixed peg of 655.957 to the euro and a euro rate of $1.1679 on Aug. 21.

Neither party disclosed a disbursement schedule, pricing, tenor or security arrangement. A memorandum of understanding is a statement of intent rather than a binding credit facility, and the announcement did not indicate when individual projects would reach financial close.

Nassa, who chairs the Coris group, separately announced a donation of 100 million CFA francs, about $178,000, to cover schooling for pupilles de la Nation, the children of Burkinabè killed in service to the state. The category has expanded sharply during a decade-long insurgency that has displaced roughly two million people.

Sawadogo framed the agreement as domestic capital stepping into a financing gap. "As Captain Ibrahim Traoré says, the construction of Burkina Faso is done by Burkinabè and the friends of Burkina Faso," he said. Traoré, who seized power in a coup in September 2022, has pushed a self-reliance doctrine that discourages dependence on Western donors and multilateral lenders.

Gumedzoé said the country's development depends on investment in human capital and in infrastructure essential to the lives of its people. She also stressed the need for rigorous management of the funds mobilised.

Professor Zakaria Soré, secretary general of the presidency and national coordinator of the presidential initiative on education, attended the signing, alongside Drissa Traoré, national coordinator of the presidential health initiative. Both called on other institutions to follow Coris.

The commitment lands during the most expansionist period in Coris's history. Nassa founded the bank in Ouagadougou in January 2008 with about $3 million in capital, having started out in 1984 trading bicycle parts and consumer goods across West African borders. The group now holds more than $9 billion in assets across Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Togo, Benin, Mali, Guinea, Chad, Niger, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, with close to a tenth of the banking market in the eight-country West African monetary union.

Coris Holding, which Nassa controls, held 70 percent of the listed bank in 2016 and 63.6 percent by 2024. The BRVM records a free float of 132.5 billion CFA francs against total capitalisation of 662.4 billion, implying that roughly 80 percent of the equity is closely held. The bank paid a dividend of 900 CFA francs a share on June 19 and reported a 22 percent rise in first-quarter net profit.

Much of the growth has come from buying what international banks were leaving. Coris took Standard Chartered's retail operation in Côte d'Ivoire in 2023 and 67.8 percent of Société Générale's Chadian subsidiary in December 2024, which gave it a licence inside the six-country Central African monetary bloc. In January it bought 59.81 percent of Banco Comercial do Atlântico, Cape Verde's largest bank, from Portugal's state-owned Caixa Geral de Depósitos, lifting that holding to 62.25 percent in June through a mandatory offer on the Bolsa de Valores de Cabo Verde. It has incorporated a Cameroonian subsidiary in Douala with share capital of 26 billion CFA francs and is awaiting regulatory clearance, and a delegation met the Central African monetary bloc's common market commissioner in Bangui on July 30 to discuss entering the Central African Republic.

The group has also been raising external funding at pace. It signed an €80 million facility with the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development this month for food, energy and agricultural lending, following €100 million in co-investment led by Mediterrania Capital Partners with FMO, British International Investment, BIO and Denmark's IFU in October 2025.

Coris Bank International has not published its own statement on the agreement.