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Shares of Coris Bank International, the Burkina Faso lender founded by tycoon Idrissa Nassa, have tripled this year, the best performance on West Africa's regional exchange according to data compiled by Bloomberg, lifting the value of the stake held by Nassa's Coris Holding to about 663 billion CFA francs ($1.13 billion).
Coris Bank closed at 32,570 CFA francs on Friday on the BRVM, the Abidjan-based exchange that serves the eight countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union. That is up 202.1% from 10,780 CFA francs at the end of 2025. Measured in dollars, the gain is about 188%, because the CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro, has weakened against the dollar since January.
The rally gives the bank a market value of about 1.04 trillion CFA francs ($1.78 billion), up from about 345 billion CFA francs at the start of the year.
Coris Holding's stake
Coris Holding, the banking group Nassa controls, owned 63.61% of Coris Bank International at the end of 2025, or about 20.36 million of the bank's 32 million shares, according to the bank's shareholder disclosure on the BRVM. Individual investors held 5.93%, and the remaining 30.46% trades freely.
At Friday's closing price, that holding is worth about 662.97 billion CFA francs ($1.13 billion). At the end of 2025 it was worth about 219.43 billion CFA francs, or roughly $393 million at the exchange rate of the time. The stake has gained about $738 million in value this year.
The holding also pays well. Coris Bank paid a net dividend of 900 CFA francs a share in June, up from 555 CFA francs a year earlier, which brought Coris Holding about 18.3 billion CFA francs ($31 million).
Nassa does not hold the bank shares in his own name, and the size of his personal interest in Coris Holding has not been disclosed. Mediterrania Capital Partners, an Africa-focused private equity firm, agreed in October 2025 to lead a €100 million ($112 million) investment in Coris Holding alongside European development finance institutions.
Profit keeps rising
Earnings have grown, though not as fast as the share price. Coris Bank raised its net profit 17.8% to 62.34 billion CFA francs ($106 million) in the nine months to Sept. 30, according to results published on Oct. 29. Net banking income, the main revenue measure for banks in French-speaking Africa, rose 14.9% to 116.37 billion CFA francs ($199 million), and customer deposits climbed 26.4% to 2.37 trillion CFA francs ($4.05 billion).
The bank earned a record 65.49 billion CFA francs ($112 million) in 2025, up 37% from the previous year. Rating agency Bloomfield Investment Corp. has kept its long-term rating on the bank at AA with a stable outlook.
Exchange plans new products
The surge comes as the BRVM prepares to add new ways to trade its stocks. The exchange plans to introduce exchange-traded funds and a futures market, with the first futures contracts set to track stock indexes and the shares of selected listed companies.
Edoh Kossi Aménounvé, the BRVM's chief executive officer, said at the Africa Financial Summit in Luanda, Angola, on Nov. 4 that the futures launch would slip into 2027 because regulatory and technology work was not finished. The exchange had planned to open the market on Dec. 18 this year. It signed an agreement with the Montreal Exchange in March 2024 for help with the rules, clearing and trading systems for the new market.
Nassa's group
Nassa, a Burkinabe banker, founded Coris Bank in Ouagadougou in 2008. Through Coris Holding he has built one of the largest banking groups in French-speaking West Africa, with banks in all eight monetary union countries and in Guinea. The group entered Central Africa in 2025 by buying Société Générale's 67.8% stake in its Chad unit, and it has plans for Gabon and Cameroon.
Coris's eight banks in the monetary union held a combined balance sheet of 7.1 trillion CFA francs ($12.1 billion) at the end of 2025, equal to 8.6% of the region's banking assets. That tied Coris with Ecobank, the pan-African lender, according to the West African banking commission.
Figures were converted at 586 CFA francs to the dollar. Values at the end of 2025 were converted at 558 CFA francs to the dollar, based on the euro's reference rate of $1.175 on Dec. 31, 2025.
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