Nedbank Group of South Africa has promised to keep all NCBA Group employees in place once it completes its proposed takeover of the bank, with the commitment being a key consideration of the Kenyan lender’s board when it recommended the transaction to shareholders.
In a notice of additional information on the offer, NCBA said that the South African bank expects the human resource of the local unit to play a key role in the wider group, effectively spearheading its East African expansion strategy.
When it announced its tender offer for a 66 percent stake in Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed NCBA on January 21, Nedbank did not address the expected impact of the transaction on employees.
In a subsequent interview however, NCBA Chief Executive John Gachora indicated that minimal disruption to the lender’s brand, staff and business were key deciding factors in its recommendation of the Nedbank offer to shareholders.
Latest filings by NCBA show that it had 3,712 staff on its books at the end of December 2024, having gone up from 3,462 in December 2023.
“The offeror (Nedbank) has confirmed... that following the completion of the proposed transaction, the existing contractual and statutory employment rights of the existing NCBA management and employees will remain in full force in accordance with applicable laws,” said NCBA in its notice published on Monday.
“The NCBA management and employees will play an important role in the future development of the enlarged group.”
Previous banking sector mergers or acquisitions of this scale have often resulted in painful integration processes that include job losses, and branch closures and consolidation of systems that disrupt customer experience.
The proposed Nedbank investment has also been made easier on NCBA by the fact that it does not have an operating banking presence in Kenya, where it only runs a representative office.
Speaking last month to the Business Daily, Mr Gachora said that the NCBA board prioritised a transaction that would preserve the bank’s identity, structure and brand.
Under the proposed transaction, NCBA will retain its existing board structure, with Nedbank nominating at least two directors to its board, while the current NCBA shareholders will appoint one representative to sit on Nedbank’s board. The Nedbank offer was one of several that had been forwarded by foreign lenders.
There was market speculation that Standard Bank of South Africa was interested in a buyout of NCBA, through its Kenyan subsidiary Stanbic Holdings.
Nedbank is bidding for a 66 percent stake in NCBA, proposing to pay for 80 percent of the offered shares through a share swap and the remaining 20 percent in cash at a rate of Sh2,100 for each 100 shares. The Nedbank shares are priced at 250 rands (Sh1,928.50) in the transaction.
The swap component will see the Kenyan bank’s shareholders receive 4.02994 Nedbank shares for every 100 NCBA they hold, although those whose holdings are not large enough to secure them at least 200 Nedbank shares will be paid fully in cash.
The Nedbank offer is worth 13.9 billion rand (Sh109.9 billion), with all NCBA shareholders eligible to tender to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed lender 66 percent of their shares on a prorated basis.
NCBA had 11,912 shareholders with holdings of between one and 500 shares as of December 2025, according to regulatory filings. Another 13,389 investors had portfolios ranging from 501 and 5,000 shares. The filings show that 1,853 of the bank’s shareholders held between 5,001 and 10,000 shares.
The major owners of the lender include the Jomo Kenyatta family, the Philip Ndegwa family and the Simeon Nyachae family.
