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Achieving success post-acquisition starts before the acquisition, as this strategy is always prone to problems.
However, Access Bank’s strong track record of successful mergers and acquisition in the banking industry as demonstrated by the bank’s integration capabilities in the successful acquisition of six institutions in the past 15 years has shown that there’s more to them than just banking.
“Very quickly in life, I determined that there are two types of people you meet: people who enable you and people who disable you. People who disable are not bad people; they are just people who do not impact you positively enough to help you succeed. Enablers are people who by your interaction with them, give you leverage to step up. By the time I left university, I didn’t have time for people who disable me. I also began to build a portfolio of enablers”, said Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede in 2016.
History will record that the best merger Herbert Wigwe ever made was the friendship between him and Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede.
The two of them first met in 1989 when Wigwe was a credit officer and then in 1991 at Guaranty Trust Bank where they both worked for more than a decade and rose to become Executive Directors at their respective divisions. They were friends who turned brothers. Aigboje considered Herbert an enabler with a mind as sound as his own, so when faced with what the next big step should be, it was Herbert he turned to.
At the time, a small dysfunctional bank named Access Bank was subsequently listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and was failing at raising capital in the markets. For a cover story interview with Forbes Africa, he narrated how he convinced Herbert to leave Guaranty Trust Bank and take over ownership of Access Bank from its owners. Together, they only had $2 million. But by sheer determination and the wisdom from years of experience, they raised the $10 million it took to buy 51 per cent of Access Bank. In 2002, Access Bank came under a new leadership with Aigboje serving as its CEO and Herbert, his deputy.
When Aigboje and Herbert bought Access Bank, it ranked a depressing 65 out of 89 banks in the country. In the Forbes interview, Aigboje is quoted as saying that he felt a bit of panic when he learnt that the dollar balance sheet of Access Bank was a bit smaller than Aliko Dangote’s credit card limit – a laughable moment in retrospect.
Five years later, Access Bank rose to number eight. How did it happen? Through one of the tested and trusted methods of growth – mergers and acquisitions.
The corporate mergers of Herbert Wigwe’s spectacular career began in 2005 when Access Bank acquired Marina Bank and Capital Bank (formerly Commercial Bank Crédit Lyonnais Nigeria). This strategic move took the capital base of the new bank to N25.5 billion in shareholders’ funds. When Access Bank announced the African Expansion Strategy in March 2007, many predicted that more acquisitions were on the way.
