Egypt bank to unseat Standard Chartered

AS the top loan arranger in Africa for the past three years, Standard Chartered is used to playing catch-up in the second half of the year. It has got its work cut out this year.

Egypt’s Banque Misr, a Cairo-based lender with about $650 billion (R7.9 trillion) fewer assets than Standard Chartered, is the best performer so far, underwriting about $1.6bn in loans on the continent, according to data. That is more than double the figure for second-placed Bank of China. Standard Chartered, joint last with seven other lenders, has not been this far behind since 2009.
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“Typically we see African loan volumes stronger in the second half of each year, and we expect a similar trend will emerge in 2015,” Daniel Berman, the head of capital markets for Africa at Standard Chartered, said this week.

The lender has made a series of senior management changes this year in a bid to reverse two years of declining profit and rebuild investor confidence. Part of the slowing in African borrowing was because of the Nigerian election, Berman said.

The continent’s loans market almost doubled during Standard Chartered’s years of dominance to about $43bn in 2014.