African Bank creditors called to vote on restructure

Creditors of failed lender African Bank will vote to give final approval to the proposed exchange offers made to them in terms of an Information Memorandum and its supplement, African Bank announced on Friday.

The Offer Information Memorandum and the related Exchange Offer documents will be released on February 4 and include details of the voting process to be followed by creditors.

The Minister of Finance then needs to give consent to the restructure before African Bank Good Bank has lift off.

African Bank curator, Tom Winterboer, said the release of these documents “will represent a significant milestone for the African Bank restructuring”.

“This is a really good story and it’s what we’ve been working towards for the last 18 months,” African Bank spokesperson, Louise Brugman told Moneyweb.

She said the proposed transaction was “exactly as the curator had envisaged”. Comments received by creditors pertained mostly to issues relating to the restructuring process, Brugman said.

Both senior and subordinated debt holders will take a haircut on their claims, while shareholders will have to wait for the bank to relist – possibly only in 2019. Read more about that here.

African Bank’s launch date, initially set for next month, was pushed out to April after plans to acquire insurance company, Stangen from parent, African Bank Investments Limited (Abil) fell apart, following an urgent interdict brought by BEE shareholders that believed the offer price was too low.

Earlier this month, African Bank announced the establishment of its own cell captive insurer, African Insurance Group Limited, which is underwritten by Guardrisk.

Brian Riley, CEO designate of African Bank Good Bank, said at the time that the move represented a big step forward in finalising African Bank’s restructuring.

Riley told journalists last month that African Bank was issued its banking licence on the basis that it diversifies, which he said would take the form of new products, customers and channels, including disbursing loans digitally.