Atlas Mara Limited

Atlas Mara was founded on November 28, 2013 by former Barclays Executive Bob Diamond and entrepreneur Ashish Thakkar through Atlas Merchant Capital LLC and Mara Group Holdings Limited as their investment vehicles respectively.[5] Atlas Merchant held 80% while Mara Group held 20% of the venture upon incorporation. The Group's geographical area of focus is on the African continent.

The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange as a SPAC on December 17, 2013 through an IPO which raised USD 325 million.[6] As of 17 July 2020, the stock price had crashed and had lost over 95½% of its IPO price.[7] The ticker symbol in London is "ATMA.LN". It trades by appointment in the United States on the Pink Sheets under the ticker symbol "AAMAF".

On March 31, 2014, Atlas Mara announced that it had made an offer to acquire sub-Saharan African bank ABC Holdings Limited and Frankfurt based African Development Corporation AG (ADC) for approximately $265 million. This was to be done through a three phase acquisition strategy:[8]

• The group would acquire 50.1% stake of BancABC through direct agreements.
• The group would make a voluntary offer to acquire a majority stake in ADC, bringing total ownership in BancABC up to 88%.
• The group would make a subsequent mandatory offer for the remaining 12% stake in BancABC.

This acquisition would give the group presence in Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe and a minority stake in the Union Bank of Nigeria. The Transaction was scheduled to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2014.[9]

On May 24, 2014, Atlas Mara announced that the group would be acquiring Government of Rwanda stake in the commercial arm of the Rwanda Development Bank (BRD).[10][11]

In September 2014, Atlas Mara acquired a 20.9 percent stake in the Union Bank of Nigeria from Asset Management Company of Nigeria[12] for $270 million, putting its total holding in the firm at almost 30 percent.[13]

On September 22, 2014, Atlas Mara made a mandatory offer for remaining 4.2% outstanding shareholding in ABC Holdings that the group did not hold in ABCH. The minority shareholders would either opt for a cash consideration or receive 0.0683 ordinary shares of Atlas Mara for each ABCH share held.[14] This will lead to the delisting of ABC Holdings from both the Botswana and Zimbabwe Stock Exchanges.[15] This delisting was finally concluded on 28 November 2014.[16]

On October 16, 2014, Atlas Mara announced that it had completed its previously announced acquisition of the Development Bank of Rwanda's commercial banking business which had been spun off into a new subsidiary following an internal reorganization of BRD. This subsidiary was incorporated to run the commercial loan portfolio, BRD's Insurance brokerage firm and a piece of a commercial plot adjacent to BRD’s Kigali headquarters.[17] In April 2015, the group announced its intention to acquire a significant minority interest in Banque Populaire du Rwanda SA (BPR). The group would then marge BPR's business to that span off BRD then acquire secondary shares from existing shareholders resulting in the Company having a controlling stake of the merged business.[18]

In 2016, Atlas Mara completed the purchase of Finance Bank of Zambia (FBZ) with consideration settled by approximately $61 million in cash and 3.3 million Atlas Mara shares, not including deferred contingent consideration of up to 1.3 million Atlas Mara shares. FBZ will be combined with Atlas Mara's Zambian subsidiary, African Banking Corporation Zambia Limited ("BancABC Zambia"), with pro forma combined assets as at December 31, 2015 of approximately $567 million. The acquisition will position the merged bank as one of the largest banks in terms of branch footprint in Zambia with the physical presence increasing from 23 branches to 65 branches, a total of 176 ATMs and 23 agencies.[19]

In April 2019, Atlas Mara announced that it had entered into a share swap with Equity Group Holdings Limited. The deal would see Atlas Mara transfer 62 percent of Banque Populaire du Rwanda, 100 percent of African Banking Corporation of Zambia, African Banking Corporation of Mozambique and African Banking Corporation of Tanzania to Equity Group in exchange for 6.27 percent shareholding in Equity Group in a transaction valued at valued at US$105.71 million.[20]

The companies that comprise the Atlas Mara Group include, but are not limited, to the following:[21]

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Atlas Mara Limited, was Arnold O. Ekpe while John Vitalo served as the Chief Executive Officer. The current Chairman is Michael Wilkerson.

• List of banks in Africa

• Atlas Mara Co-Nvest
• Development Bank of Rwanda
• BancABC