By Bisi Daniels
The key capital-raising transactions of the Bank of Industry from the international financial market, which fueled its sterling financial performance in 2022, are being recognized with local and international awards.
The bank’s total assets have grown by an impressive 248% between 2016 and 2022, reaching ₦1.71tn by the end of 2021 and closing at ₦2.38tn as of December 2022.
For these, the bank has won: The Best Financial Institution Syndicated Loan in EMEA (Bank of Industry’s €1Billion Loan) and The Best Financial Institution Bond in Africa (Bank of Industry’s €700Million debut 144a/Regs Senior Issuance, later increased to €750Million) at the EMEA Finance Achievement Awards For 2022 in June 2023. And The Best Development Bank of the Year-Africa and The Best Commitment to ESG Principles-Nigeria at the International Banker, 2023 Banking Awards held in London, United Kingdom in May, 2023.
The International Banker Awards 2023 was established to recognise top-ranking individuals and organisations setting new benchmarks for performance and pushing the boundaries within the financial industry.
Similarly, EMEA Finance is a leading finance magazine with a vision to be ‘the independent voice’ – one that speaks at the highest level of integrity and journalistic ethics – for the financial community, its customers, and suppliers across the EMEA region.
The Managing Director of the bank, Mr. Kayode Pitan says, the awards and recognitions, 20 of them in the last six years, “ do not only show a demonstration of commitment and innovativeness that has improved the bank’s fortunes, but also serve as positive reinforcement for more work.”
Under Pitan, from 2017 to date, BoI has raised over $5 billion from the international financial markets.
The first of the transactions was a $750 Million syndication concluded in 2017 with the support of Afreximbank and a team of international Financial Institutions (now fully paid off).
The second and third were the Euro 1Billion syndication closed in March 2020 and another $1Billion syndication that closed in December 2020 (to be fully paid off by December 2023).
The bank’s maiden Eurobond of €750 million, concluded in February 2022 was the fourth transaction. This transaction marked the first of its kind in several ways to the bank, Nigeria and Africa.
This deal was the bank’s first Eurobond transaction and the first Euro-denominated Eurobond transaction in Nigeria. The transaction was also the first Eurobond transaction covered by Nigeria’s sovereign guarantee. It represents a benchmark for other prospective issuers from the African continent. It earned the bank the Agency Bond Deal of the Year award at the 2023 Awards event of the Bonds, Loans and ESG Capital Markets in Cape Town, South Africa and has just earned one of the awards listed above.
The fifth capital raising transaction was the €1 billion guaranteed senior loan facility concluded in August of 2022. This deal also represents the first of its kind, by any Nigerian financial institution, both in terms of its size and structure. Through this transaction, the bank raised liquidity at affordable rates and diversified its funding sources by attracting new lenders at a time when the international capital markets were prohibitively expensive and shut to many borrowers. The award for this deal is also one of the awards listed above.
A €100 million line of credit from the French Development Agency (AFD) was also concluded in August 2022 representing the sixth capital raising. Through this credit facility, the bank can expand its financing interventions in environmentally friendly and green projects. A grant of €2.5 million was also included in this deal to support capacity building for both BoI staff and customers.
Regarding developmental impact, BoI disbursed the sum of ₦210.7 billion to 418,436 beneficiaries in the year through its direct and indirect lending platforms and through funds that it manages on behalf of its strategic partners.
In 2022, the BoI continued its impressive growth in major financial indices on a year-on-year basis, thus consolidating its position as Nigeria’s largest and most impactful Development Finance Institution.
