(L-R) Dr. Oscar Odiboh, managing consultant, Afribaby and Mrs. Olayinka Odiboh, coordinator, Afribaby, at the opening ceremony of the first African international baby exhibition in Lagos recently.

There are strong indications that Spring Bank Plc and Finbank Plc may have been sidelined by core investors who did not find their books to be impressive, competent banking sources have revealed. In reaction to this apparent disappointment, the banks are seriously considering regional banking status to remain in business.
BusinessWorld Intelligence can reveal that the inability of the two banks to find ‘suitor’ in the current financial ‘marriages’ in the industry was due to unimpressive financials of the two financial institutions that were rescued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The core investors, a source said, were very enthusiastic in sealing a deal with the two banks but began to withdraw when their consultants flown in from United Kingdom expressed dissatisfaction with their books. It was revealed that if not for unsatisfactory records of Spring Bank, a London-based investment group owned by Nigerians would have injected huge amount of money to turn around the bank.
Springbank has been severally plagued by a recapitalization bug that had consistently made its history very unhealthy right from time. The bank had gone into more stints of mergers and acquisition than all the banks in the industry today. BusinesWorld gathered that the investment group that backpedalled on its bid to buy Spring Bank has already finalized talks with another rescued bank and may eventually acquire between 55 percent and 65 per cent stake in the bank.
On its own part, Finbank which has discussed with a good number of intending investors was said to have similar case with Spring Bank.
But apart from unimpressive financial records, it was alleged that the executive management team of the bank and former owners of the bank are working at cross purposes. The big shareholders of Finbank had alleged that the executive management of the bank wanted to sell the bank to another local bank in order to retain their positions after the recapitalization.