Zenith Bank’s right issue, public offer get Sept 23 extension date

Zenith Bank Plc’s Rights Issue and a Public Offer which is set to raise N290 billion has been extended to September 23, 2024.
The Rights Issue offers 5,232,748,964 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each at N36.00 per share, while the Offer for Subscription presents 2,767,251,036 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each at N36.50 per share.
Recall thar Zenith Bank recorded a 98% increase in after-tax profit to N577.8 billion in the first six months of 2024.
Gross earnings for the period ended 30 June 2024 rose to N2.1 trillion, up 117% from N967 billion as at June 2023.
The Rights Issue/Public Offer which has now been extended by two weeks was scheduled to close on Monday 09, September 2024.
According to the Bank,
Thirty-five percent (35%) of the proceeds will go towards strategic expansion in the form of increasing Zenith’s footprint in Africa and other parts of the world while 20% of the proceeds will go to investments to expand infrastructure and Zenith Banks digital capabilities.
Forty-five percent of the proceeds will be utilized as working capital to support the real sector of the economy with a focus on SME/Retail segments of the business, according to Dame (Dr.) Adaora Umeoji the GMD/CEO of Zenith Bank.
Also, she said Zenith Bank is raising the least amount of money among its peers undertaking the recapitalization exercise as it already had ample capital buffers.
Zenith Bank is currently the number-one bank in tier-one capital, shareholders’ funds, market capitalization, profit-after tax, dividend payment, and capital adequacy ratio. The lender paid a total dividend of N4 per share in the 2023 financial year.
The Bank is also present in Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, United Kingdom, China, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Umeoji however said that Zenith Bank had recently obtained a license to open a Paris, France branch which would be leveraged for operations in Francophone Africa beginning with Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire.
All of Zenith’s subsidiaries are profitable and contributing to the growth of the Group, she added.
Zenpay a fintech/payments subsidiary of Zenith Bank recently signed a partnership with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) for the Zenpay digital payments solution platform to be used to facilitate African trade.
Zenith Bank gets about 58% of its revenue from corporate customers while retail customers make up the rest at 42 percent.