Atlas Mara Limited, the sub-Sahara African financial services group, today announced that it has agreed to acquire an additional 280,956,166 shares of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc (NGSE:UBN), approximately a 1.0% shareholding in UBN, following which its combined direct and indirect shareholding in UBN will increase to 49.0% from 48.0%. The Company will issue 2,360,032 ordinary shares as consideration for the UBN shares acquired.
Applications have been made for the New Shares to be admitted to the Official List of the UK Listing Authority and to trading on the London Stock Exchange. Admission is expected to become effective, and dealings in the New Shares are expected to commence, at 8:00 am BST on 27 June 2018.
The New Shares will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares. Following admission of the New Shares, the Company will have 174,618,767 ordinary shares in issue, of which 1,545,764 shares are in treasury and 3,298,298 shares are held in escrow as part of the contingent consideration for the acquisition of Finance Bank Zambia Limited, as disclosed to the market on 1 July 2016. Atlas Mara hereby confirms that the total number of voting rights in Atlas Mara is 169,774,705. This figure should be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change in their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.
