Cauris Croissance, the second fund managed by Cauris Management, the West African private equity fund management company, has sold its stake in BPEC to the new reference shareholder, the SUNU group.

The initial investment of FCFA 1bn was made in 2010 followed by an additional investment of FCFA 700m in 2015.

Resulting from the transformation of the Caisse d’Epargne du Togo (CET) into the Banque Populaire pour Epargne et le Crédit (BPEC) in 2007, BPEC focused on the collection and protection of small savings and the offering of regular banking services to its customers through 27 branches across the country.

Cauris Croissance’s initial investment in BPEC helped to strengthen the equity to comply with the regulations of that time setting the minimum share capital of banks at FCFA 5bn and revive activities.

Noël Yawo Z. Eklo, CEO of Cauris Management,  said: “Cauris Croissance’s intervention has institutionalized BPEC’s shareholding in a context of disengagement of the State, strengthened the governance and internal procedures, and completed the privatization process of the bank with the negotiations initiated by Cauris Management with the SUNU group, which resulted in their taking a majority stake in the bank.”