Danish firm buys Sh2bn stake in African trade financier PTA Bank

The Danish Investment Fund for Developing Countries has acquired stake worth $20 million in the Trade and Development Bank (TDB) formerly PTA Bank.

In the deal signed between the two financial institutions, the Danish Investment Fund (IFU) bought 1,750 Class B shares making it the bank’s largest institutional investor.

TDB has membership comprising of 22 states drawn from Common Market for Eastern and Southern, East African Community and South African Development Community.

China and Belarus are the two members who are not aligned to the regional economic groups.

With the entry of the Danish organisation into the TDB shareholding, the number of institutional investors has risen to 17.

Others are the African Development Bank (ADB), Africa Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Africa Reinsurance Corporation, Arab Bank for Development in Africa (BADEA), Banco Nacional de Investimento (Mozambique), Mauritian Eagle Insurance Company, National Pension Fund (Mauritius), National Social Security Fund (Uganda), OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), PTA Reinsurance Company, Rwanda Social Security Board, Sacos Group (Sychelles) and Seychelles Pension Fund

Announcing the agreement in Nairobi Wednesday, TDB chief executive and president Admassu Tadesse said the move was an indicator of the growing confidence of European investors in its ability to provide new avenues of capital management.

“This investment in TDB’s risk capital is a new frontier for European institutional investors who have been regular investors in the bank’s international bonds over the years,” he said.

When more than one class of stocks is on offer, companies will usually term them as class A and Class B, with class A allocated more voting rights than Class B shares. This will depend on the way a company’s stock portfolio is set out.