Attijariwafa In Talks For Credit Agricole Cameroon - Official
02 Junio 2009 - 1:14PM
Noticias Dow Jones
A delegation from Morocco's Attijariwafa Bank (ATW.CL) is in the
third day of discussions with Cameroon government officials to
finalize an agreement to take over Societe Camerounaise des
Banques, or SCB, a local unit of France's Credit Agricole SA
(ACA.FR).
"We've the desire to take over SCB from Credit Agricole in the
shortest time possible," Attijariwafa Bank Chief Executive Officer
Mohamed El Kettani told reporters Monday after meeting with
Cameroon Premier Ephraim Inoni. Kettani had earlier met with
Cameroon Secretary-of-State Laurent Esso and Minister of Finance
Essimi Menye.
Credit Agricole, which was making its second attempt to
establish a presence in Cameroon after an earlier effort collapsed
in the 1990s, had taken over management of staggering SCB from
Credit Lyonnais SA (FD-CLC) more than a year ago, renaming it
SCB-Credit Agricole.
According to local media reports, Credit Agricole is abandoning
SCB, although tangible reasons are not given for the
separation.
It is not known how much Attijariwafa Bank plans to pay for SCB,
but state-run media confirmed a Dow Jones Newswires report from
government officials saying that both parties are heading to seal a
deal by the end of June.
-By Emmanuel Tumanjong, contributing to Dow Jones Newswires;
+237-7773-1930; tnuel@yahoo.com