Senegalese billionaire Yerim Sow's holding company sells $118 million of Bridge Bank

Bridge Bank Group Côte d'Ivoire will begin trading on West Africa's regional stock exchange on Sept. 24, completing a share sale in which Bridge Group West Africa, the financial holding company through which Senegalese billionaire Yerim Sow controls the lender, disposed of a fifth of its capital for 67.5 billion CFA francs, about $118 million.

The Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières said in notice No. 263-2026/BRVM/DG, published on Tuesday, Sept. 8, that the bank's shares will be admitted to the main compartment of its equity market under the ticker BBGC. The reference price is 6,750 CFA francs, roughly $11.80, the price set in the public offering. The first traded price will be established by matching buy and sell orders on the day. Dollar conversions are at 572 CFA francs to the dollar.

At the offer price the bank is valued at 337.5 billion CFA francs, or about $590 million.

Who sold, and what they kept

The ownership chain runs from Sow through Teyliom Group, the pan-African holding company he founded, to Bridge Group West Africa, which is Teyliom's financial arm and the direct shareholder in the bank. BGWA was the seller. Sow did not sell shares in his own name and Teyliom Group did not sell any directly.

BGWA held 77 percent of the bank before the offer. The Caisse Nationale de Prévoyance Sociale, Côte d'Ivoire's state social security fund, held 20 percent, and other shareholders held 3 percent. BGWA now retains 57 percent, a fall matching exactly the 20 percent that went to the market, which confirms it sold the entire block on its own. CNPS did not sell a share and keeps its 20 percent. The 3 percent held by other shareholders is unchanged.

At the offer price, the 57 percent BGWA retains is worth about 192.4 billion CFA francs, or $336 million.

One element of the transaction has not been reconciled publicly. The offer covered 10 million existing shares, which means the 67.5 billion CFA francs went to BGWA as the seller rather than into the bank's capital. Ecofin Agency nonetheless reports that proceeds will help fund the bank's expansion, digital investment and business lending. Those two accounts cannot both be straightforwardly true unless BGWA is passing the money down to the bank or a primary component exists that has not been broken out. Bridge Securities, the Teyliom subsidiary that arranged the deal, has published no breakdown.

An offer that closed in a day

The offering opened on July 20 and was scheduled to run until Aug. 6. It closed on July 21 because demand was so heavy.

Orders totalled 95.8 billion CFA francs against 67.5 billion on offer, a subscription rate of 142 percent, leaving excess demand of 28.3 billion CFA francs, about $49.5 million. A total of 17,544 investors across four continents took part. Individuals accounted for 58 percent of the amount subscribed, an unusually high retail share for a West African bank listing.

Who Yerim Sow is

Sow, the founder and chairman of Teyliom Group, is Senegal's richest man and one of the most private large fortunes in francophone West Africa.

He studied at the University of Montreal and then Boston University, returned to Dakar and began by reselling goods bought on trips abroad. He founded Direct Access, a computing company, in 1988, and launched BIP Access, Senegal's first paging company, in 1994. That business became a shareholder in Loteny Telecom, which held Côte d'Ivoire's first GSM licence. Selling his controlling interest in Loteny to MTN Group in late 2005 gave him the capital for everything that followed.

Teylium, later renamed Teyliom, was created in 2001. Sow entered banking in 2006 by founding Bridge Bank Group in Abidjan with Pape Diouf, and took a stake the same year in African Financial Holding, which became BOA Group. He moved into Dakar and Abidjan property with Sea Plaza, Trilenium and the Atryum, and launched Mangalis Hotel Group in 2013 with a plan to spend 315 million euros on 15 hotels across 13 African countries, operating the Noom, Seen and Yaas brands.

Teyliom now spans 52 companies in 16 countries across West Africa, Central Africa, Europe and the Middle East, covering telecoms, real estate, hospitality, logistics and finance. Financial services account for roughly 41 percent of group revenue.

What Bridge Bank does and where it is going

Founded in Abidjan in 2006, Bridge Bank grew by lending to small and medium-sized Ivorian businesses and now also serves large corporates, public institutions, other financial institutions and retail customers. First-quarter 2026 net banking income rose 23 percent from a year earlier to 16 billion CFA francs, and net profit rose 48 percent to 8 billion CFA francs.

The bank has operated in Senegal since 2021 through a branch it intends to convert into a full subsidiary. It expanded into Mali in 2024, plans a Guinean subsidiary in January 2027, and applied in April 2025 for approval to open a branch in Burkina Faso in the first half of 2027.

The private equity firm AfricInvest helped establish Bridge Securities, Bridge Asset Management and Bridge Micro Finance before selling its minority holding back to Teyliom Finance in 2022, simplifying the shareholder structure ahead of the listing.

Bridge Bank becomes the 16th bank and the 48th company on the BRVM, an exchange serving the eight countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union where new listings remain rare. What the shares are actually worth, as opposed to what buyers were asked to pay, will not be known until orders are matched on Sept. 24.