Nedbank Investment Bank

completed

The proposed project consists of the establishment of Namibia''s first full service merchant bank offering a full range of merchant banking services including private equity, corporate finance, project finance, and asset management. Nedcor Investment Bank Holdings, a leading South African merchant bank, is the main sponsor and strategic partner of the project. NIB Holdings intends to restructure and recapitalize its current subsidiary, NIB Namibia (Pty) Limited, from an asset management company into a full service provider of merchant banking services. The objective is to create a "truly" Namibian operation based on significant Namibian equity ownership and to develop local delivery capacity through skills transfer and training. IFC''s will assume the classic "honest broker/neutral partner" role in the project by providing considerable comfort to all parties during deal structuring and monitoring successful implementation of local capacity building and training aspects of the project. The project is expected to have a significant development impact as it will establish Namibia''s first financial institution that is able to provide a full range of merchant banking services to the Namibian market place. The latter will constitute an important step in the development of significant Namibian participation in the financial sector of this relatively young country and create local delivery capacity in an area that was previously the "imported" domain of the large South African commercial banks.