Atlas Mara proposes first acquisitions

Atlas Mara, the African banking company co-founded by former Barclays boss Bob Diamond, has agreed its first two acquisitions. Diamond and co-founder Ashish Thakkar have signed agreements to acquire a majority of BancABC and ADC African Development Corporation for $265m in cash and Atlas Mara shares.BancABC is a multi-service bank with operations across Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, also known as the Southern African development community, the largest trading bloc in Africa.ADC is a Frankfurt-based, open market listed, Africa-focused, emerging pan-African banking group. It has an indirect 47.1% stake in BancABC.Atlas Mara has entered into an agreement with ADC African Development Corporation to make a voluntary public takeover offer, via an exchange offer, for all outstanding ADC shares. Diamond said: "When we founded Atlas Mara, we did so with the intention of identifying and partnering with exceptional multi-country African financial services companies. "Our objective is to build Africa's premier financial services group leveraging the access to capital, liquidity and funding that we at Atlas Mara can provide. I am delighted that we will be merging with such high quality organisations as BancABC and ADC." "Our future growth will be based on expanding on Dirk Harbecke's vision at ADC and on the foundation created by Douglas Munatsi and his team at BancABC, who have built a fast-growing, prudently-managed, African banking institution."OH