EFG Hermes, a leading financial services corporation in frontier and emerging markets (FEM), has entered into a definitive sale and purchase agreement (SPA) to acquire 100% of Primera Africa, a top-ranked brokerage house in Nigeria. The company disclosed this in a press release.
The firm in June last year indicated interest in acquiring a firm in Nigeria.
EFG Hermes will utilize its presence in Nigeria to serve both global and domestic investor appetite for opportunities in Africa’s largest economy. Nigeria will also serve as a hub for expansion into West Africa, as EFG Hermes’office in Kenya now does for the other side of the continent.
Primera Africa already offers a comprehensive suite of brokerage and research services to domestic and international investors from its headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria.
Upon completion of the acquisition, Primera Africa will operate under EFG Hermes’ brand name, bringing to the Nigerian market a track-record that has spanned more than 30 years of offering best-in-class financial services, award-winning research, and a large network of investors who consistently seek compelling opportunities in high growth markets.
“Nigeria is our fourth direct entry as we continue our strategy of expanding our geographic footprint in high-potential, frontier emerging markets,”
said EFG Hermes Holding Group Chief Executive Officer Karim Awad.
“At the close of this transaction, we will have a direct presence in 12 jurisdictions on four continents to serve our global institutional investors, regional high-net-worth individuals, and local retail investors.”
Over the past 12 months, EFG Hermes has directly entered Pakistan, Kenya, and Bangladesh in addition to receiving recent regulatory approval from the FCA to operate in the United Kingdom out of its London office.
“We have been consistently focusing on ramping up our services in newly-entered markets, which resulted in the firm being ranked as the number one frontier market brokerage firm in the 2018 Extel Survey, advancing from the ninth place a year earlier. Most recently, the Firm also concluded its advisory to international microfinance lender ASA International (ASAI), an entity with significant African presence, on its GBP 125 million initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange (LSE),” added Awad.
“Nigeria is Africa’s largest consumer market and is consistently among the three largest economies on the continent alongside Egypt and South Africa. On the capital markets’ front, it accounted for the largest share of our brokerage executions, and revenue among all frontier markets in which we indirectly executed during 2017,” said
Ebeid, Co-CEO of the Investment Bank at EFG Hermes.
EFG Hermes expects to complete the acquisition of Primera Africa by31 August 2018, subject to regulatory approval and the satisfaction of certain conditions precedent.