Billionaire investor Baloobhai Patel is now the second largest individual investor at Co-op Bank.
This is after he more than quadrupled his stake in Co-op Bank to Sh. 403 million. Co-op Bank said in regulatory filings that Mr Patel raised his ownership from 5.8 million shares in February to 25.2 million in September, boosting his stake in the lender from 0.12 per cent to 0.43 per cent.
The value of his shareholding jumped from Sh93.8 million to Sh403 million over the same period based on the bank’s share price of Sh16 on Monday.
The share purchases saw him leap over low-profile Tanzanian billionaires Aunali and Sajjad Rajabali –who held a 0.41 per cent stake as of September— to rank second after the bank’s CEO, Gideon Muriuki, whose ownership stands at 2.05 per cent.
Mr Patel’s increased investment in Co-op Bank is seen as a signal of his confidence about the lender’s future prospects.
Co-op Bank has in recent years elbowed its way to the top banking circles, overtaking long-time rivals like Barclays Bank of Kenya and Standard Chartered Bank (Kenya) by various measures, including profit, assets and return on equity.
Co-op Bank reported a Sh9.5 billion net profit for the nine months ended September
