Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) has completed the first round of its equity capital program, raising ₦209.41 billion. This development was made known in an announcement placed on the corporate disclosure of the Nigerian Exchange Group on the 7th of January, 2025 after securing the necessary approvals from both the CBN and the SEC.
In the announcement, GTCO noted that following its offer to investors—both individuals and institutions—it raised a total of ₦209.41 billion from 130,617 valid applications for 4.7 billion fully allotted ordinary shares.
The shares offered to the public were aimed to help the back achieve the CBN’s recapitalisation benchmark of ₦500 billion for internationally licenced banks.
In its announcement, the bank noted that the funds raised would equally support the Group in its expansion, product enhancement and innovation across the banking and non-banking subsidiaries of the group.
The statement in the Corporate Disclosure also noted that the second phase of the recapitalisation exercise, set to commence in 2025, will be focused on “attracting significant foreign institutional investments”. This is in a bid to reaffirm the bank’s “truly international financial services brand”.
Expressing his gratitude to investors, the Group’s Chairman, Mr Segun Agbaje noted thus, “The strong participation and successful capital verification exercise and allotment process reaffirm the confidence investors have in our fundamentals and execution capabilities.”
He further said, “This sets a solid foundation for accelerating our strategic roadmap, which aims to pivot the Group for transformational growth and unlock greater value across the Group’s banking and non-banking businesses.”
It is expected that in 2025, more banks will announce the completion of the different stages of their recapitalisation exercises to meet up with the benchmark amounts set by the CBN as the minimum share capital for different categories of banks.
It should be recalled that in December, Access Bank announced the completion of its recapitalisation exercise, having raised ₦600 billion as its share capital. Also, FCMB followed suit with a ₦145 billion raise.
