CfC Stanbic Looking to Separate Banking and Insurance Sectors

July 20 - Shareholders of CfC Stanbic Holdings Limited are attending an extraordinary meeting to vote on the separation of the company's banking and insurance sectors.

Shareholders will vote on August 9 by ballot on numerous resolutions with regard to the de-merger of the company.

The separation has been planned in order to give the business a more specific strategy and to generate worth from the list of a new company.

Liberty Life, South Africa's third largest insurer and subsidiary of Standard Bank is likely to take up 59.82% in CfCIH - a merger of Heritage Insurance Company Limited and CfC Life Assurance Limited.

The formation of CfCIH was a result of the separation of the banking and insurance businesses of CfC Stanbic Holdings Limited.

It is expected that CfC Insurance Holdings Limited will be listed on the Niarobi Stock Exchange following the completion of the de-merger. Once this occurs, investors will be able to invest in either the listed banking or insurance business of the holding company.

Over the past four months, the CfC listing has improved by 91.9% to stand at Sh82.50 in last week's trading.

Their earnings in the first quarter of this year were reported to be Sh563. Approximately 80% of the company's business is in their banking sector, while the remaining 20% is made up of insurance, financial and investment advisory services.

Two years after South Africa's Standard Bank's local Stanbic Bank completed their first merger with CfC Bank, Standard Bank has seen a 151% increase in their profits. These results suggest that while the Kenyan economy is rebounding, so too are the fortunes of the bank.