South Africa’s Nedbank Group has secured unconditional approval from two of East Africa’s top competition watchdogs for its planned purchase of a 66 percent controlling stake in NCBA Group, moving one of the biggest cross-border banking deals this region has seen in recent years another significant step closer to completion.
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Competition Commission (CCCC) and the East African Community Competition Authority (EACCA) have both cleared the transaction without attaching any conditions. The CCCC went on record stating that the deal was “unlikely to negatively affect competition” across the three Comesa markets where NCBA currently operates — Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. Nedbank, for its part, already has an established footprint in eleven countries across the continent, including Egypt, Mauritius, Tunisia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, giving the combined group a considerably wider continental reach.
The latest approvals build on an earlier clearance from South Africa’s Prudential Authority, which had already signed off on the deal. With regulatory backing now secured across multiple jurisdictions, Nedbank is maintaining its projected timeline: the acquisition is expected to close either at the tail end of the third quarter of 2026 or early in the fourth quarter of the same year.
The transaction was first announced in January and places a combined value of approximately Sh110 billion on NCBA Group. Under the agreed payment structure, 20 percent of the consideration will be settled in cash, with the remaining 80 percent paid in Nedbank shares — an arrangement that gives existing NCBA shareholders a direct stake in the enlarged group going forward. Despite transitioning under Nedbank’s ownership, NCBA will retain its listing on the Nairobi Securities Exchange and continue to operate as a publicly traded subsidiary.
Shareholder support for the deal is firmly locked in. Nedbank has already collected irrevocable undertakings from investors representing 77.54 percent of NCBA’s issued shares — a commanding majority that comfortably clears any threshold required to formally ratify the acquisition.
The deal carries particular significance for some of Kenya’s most storied founding families. Heirs connected to founding President Jomo Kenyatta and descendants linked to the late former Central Bank Governor Phillip Ndegwa are set to receive combined payouts exceeding Sh21 billion in a blend of cash and Nedbank shares. The scale of those disbursements is a striking reminder of how closely Kenya’s earliest banking institutions were bound up with the individuals who shaped the country’s post-independence economic identity.
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