Access Holdings is considering leaving at least one of its foreign markets to comply with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rules that limit investments in overseas subsidiaries, Bloomberg reported. Chairman Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede said the group had identified one unnamed “troublesome” subsidiary that it may dispose of to bring its foreign investments within the limits.
“If a subsidiary cannot meet its cost of capital and the strategic objectives for which it is set up, you should be ready to take a decision to exit,” Aig-Imoukhuede said in an interview on the sidelines of the African Financial Industry Summit in Luanda, Angola. In the same interview he said: “Do we have one or two troublesome subsidiaries? I can think of one.”
THREE OPTIONS AND A 10% CAP
The CBN introduced the rules in June 2025, limiting Nigerian banks’ equity investments in foreign subsidiaries to no more than 10% of their total shareholders’ funds. The policy is meant to make lenders keep enough capital to absorb financial shocks rather than commit excessive funds to overseas operations.
Access Bank’s ratio of investment to shareholders’ funds stood at 19.4% in May, and the CBN gave the lender 12 months to bring it within the prescribed threshold. The group operates in about 24 countries.
Innocent Ike, chief executive of Access Holdings, said on a conference call on Thursday that the group was considering three options: recalling surplus capital from six subsidiaries, divesting minority shareholdings and restructuring some operations. He said the recall of excess capital had been completed at one subsidiary and that the lender was engaging regulators in five countries to return additional funds to Nigeria.
FROM EXPANSION TO RETRENCHMENT
Access expanded aggressively across Africa after Nigeria’s 2016 recession, acquiring assets from Standard Chartered, Atlas Mara and KCB Group. It has pulled back before: in 2014 it sold its loss-making Ivory Coast operation to Cameroon’s Afriland First Group after the CBN restricted Nigerian banks from using parent-bank capital to support foreign subsidiaries.
On an earlier investor call in Lagos, Roosevelt Ogbonna, speaking as Access Bank’s chief executive, had said the bank was “looking at divestments” but would remain “the controller of those banking entities”. Bankable put Access Bank’s foreign banking subsidiaries at 446.6 billion naira in book value at the end of the first quarter of 2026, unchanged from the end of 2025, with Access Bank UK accounting for 163.9 billion naira, or nearly 37% of that portfolio.
A NETWORK THE GROUP WANTS TO KEEP
Access Holdings maintains that its international footprint remains strategically important, particularly in facilitating cross-border trade, payments and business expansion across African markets, and it presents the regional network as a competitive advantage. “The portfolio is very healthy,” Aig-Imoukhuede said.
Aig-Imoukhuede said the group needed “dynamic portfolio management” and looked every year for ways to improve. Access is not the only Nigerian lender building abroad: Zenith Bank, UBA and Guaranty Trust Holding Company have also boosted their external footprint in recent years.
Ike said the group was working to bring its investment-in-subsidiaries ratio within the limit before the March deadline. Aig-Imoukhuede indicated that the process could be completed earlier than initially anticipated: “We gave ourselves up till January next year, and I think we’re completing this ahead of schedule.”
THE TGB VIEW
Access Holdings is sixth in the TGB Bank Rankings table of the largest banks in Sub-Saharan Africa, which ranks banks by total assets, with US$35.9bn at December 2025 and a return on equity of 18.5%, a figure the table notes reflects high domestic inflation and interest rates. Among its Nigerian peers, United Bank for Africa is eighth with US$23.1bn and a return on equity of 9.1%, and Zenith Bank tenth with US$21.9bn and 21.1%. Recalling surplus capital from six subsidiaries is one of three options Ike named, and the group’s engagement with regulators in five countries is the step to watch before the March deadline.
Related: Access Holdings lifts nine-month pre-tax profit 8.3% to ₦667.4 billion as impairment charges fall
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