South Africa’s Absa Group said this week it had raised its stake in Absa Bank Kenya to roughly 72%, after acquiring about 3.5% of the lender through a tender offer that fell well short of its original target.

Absa said it accepted valid tenders from 2,045 shareholders for approximately 189 million ordinary shares in Absa Bank Kenya, a fraction of the up to 896 million shares it had offered to buy from minority investors.

The Johannesburg-based bank said it did not plan to return to the market to acquire the remaining shares covered by the original offer, effectively closing the transaction well below its stated ceiling.

Absa launched the tender offer in June, proposing to lift its shareholding in Absa Bank Kenya from about 68.5% to as much as 85%. The offer priced shares at 34.50 Kenyan shillings each, a premium of roughly 20% to the stock’s 30-day volume-weighted average price at the time, according to the company.

Had it been fully subscribed, the deal would have been worth close to $239 million and would have made Absa Kenya a near-wholly owned subsidiary while retaining its Nairobi Securities Exchange listing.

Instead, the final uptake covered only about a fifth of the shares on offer, indicating that most minority shareholders opted to hold on to their stock rather than sell into the tender.

Charles Russon, Absa’s group executive for Africa regions, said the bank viewed shareholders’ decision to keep their holdings as a sign of confidence in Absa Bank Kenya. Absa said in a statement it was satisfied with the outcome of the offer.

The tender offer was one of several moves by Absa to deepen its presence in Kenya’s banking sector. The group has described East Africa as a cornerstone of its pan-African growth strategy and has said Kenya is a strategically important market central to those ambitions.

South African lenders have been expanding across East Africa in recent years, a shift partly attributed to European banks scaling back their operations on the continent and to rising investor interest in the region’s growth prospects.

Rival lender Nedbank Group agreed in January to buy a majority stake in Kenya’s NCBA Group in a deal valued at roughly 13.9 billion rand ($842 million), underscoring the wider trend of South African banks pursuing acquisitions in the region.

Absa Bank Kenya has been a strong performer within the wider group. The unit’s return on equity stood at 23% last year, compared with 14.9% for the group as a whole, and it contributed about 9% of group earnings in 2025, according to analyst estimates cited in earlier reporting on the deal.

Absa’s move to raise its banking stake in Kenya has run alongside a separate decision to exit the country’s insurance market. The group has agreed to sell its entire stake in First Assurance Company and Absa Life Assurance Kenya, equivalent to a 63.32% shareholding in each, to First Assurance Investments Limited, an existing shareholder in the businesses.

Absa said the insurance sale, which still requires regulatory approval, would not immediately change coverage, claims processing or customer support for policyholders, and that existing distribution arrangements between the insurers and Absa Bank Kenya would remain in place.

The company said customers would continue to access insurance products through the bank’s branches and digital channels once the transaction closes.

The insurance divestment follows Absa’s sale of its insurance manufacturing businesses in Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia last year, as the group narrows its focus toward core banking operations across the continent.

Absa Group is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and describes itself as one of Africa’s largest diversified financial services groups, offering personal and business banking, corporate and investment banking, wealth management and insurance.

The group holds majority stakes in banks across Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, and maintains insurance operations in Kenya and South Africa.

The company has representative offices in Namibia, Nigeria and the United States, along with securities entities in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Absa’s push to raise its Kenyan banking stake began shortly after Kenny Fihla took over as group chief executive in June, and the tender offer required approval from Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority before it could proceed.