Deals
Barclays Kenya ‘Open-Minded’ About Takeovers
- Treasury urges consolidation as industry battles rate caps
- CEO Awori says KCB takeover of NBK must be done fairly
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Barclays Bank of Kenya Ltd. is ready to make acquisitions in East Africa’s largest economy as the industry struggles to cope with interest-rate caps that have cut profit and curbed lending and regulators urge the industry to consolidate.
“Are we open to acquiring? Absolutely,” Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Awori said in an interview on Wednesday in Nairobi, the capital. “So you’ll either be looking to acquire capabilities you don’t have, which will be mutually compatible, or you’d be able to see efficiencies that you’d be able to gain being together, rather than running two separate entities.”