More than three decades after entering the capital as a public bank, Bank Of Africa is withdrawing from the capital of the Moroccan leader in building and civil engineering.
The banking group controlled by O Group (the main holding company of financial magnate Othman Benjelloun) ended up selling its 155,437 shares in CID (Consulting, Engineering and Development), or nearly 40% of the share capital.
This closes a capital partnership that Bank Of Africa (formerly BMCE Bank) initiated during the 1980s (well before its privatization in 1995), in order to support other public establishments in the emergence of a leading Moroccan player in civil engineering capable of supporting major state projects and projects.
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What has actually become of the CID, whose main public shareholders are the ANP (Agence Nationale des Ports) and the LPEE, with more than 400 employees (including 200 engineers) and a consolidated turnover of more than 300 million dirhams .
A partnership that Bank Of Africa even consolidated after its privatization by increasing the capital of the CID (from 19% to 39% of the capital) during a capital increase of around a hundred million dirhams carried out in 2010 and of which she was the main subscriber. It must be said that at the time, the CID was on the privatizable list and the management of Bank Of Africa saw, through this new investment in the CID (of several tens of millions of dirhams), an opportunity for a sale. future of its participation in the stock market.
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But fourteen years later, and while this privatization of the CID was becoming more and more a real Arlesian, the number three in the Moroccan banking sector which has other strategic priorities, including the strengthening of its sub-Saharan network through BOA Group (its subsidiary with more than 70%) and the improvement of its return on equity and productivity ratios, ended up giving in to the temptation of immediate capital gains (estimated according to our sources at more than 40 million dirhams).
