(Bloomberg) -- BGFIBank Group S.A., one of central Africa’s largest banks, is reviving a plan for an initial share sale as part of a wider push to restore an image marred by a massive data leak.

The privately-held Gabon-based lender says it doesn’t need the capital but wants to take the step, mooted in 2019 but sidelined by the pandemic, to showcase reforms since the 2021 leak revealed how its Congolese unit had been used to loot state funds.

“We put in place measures to combat money laundering, review security and tighten controls” in the wake of the incident, Chief Executive Officer Henri-Claude Oyima said in an interview.

The dump of more than 3.5 million documents from the lender’s unit in the Democratic Republic Congo showed it had been employed to steer vast riches to the family and associates of former President Joseph Kabila.

An anti-money laundering certification in 2022 has since allowed the bank to put on “a new face,” he said. Its subsidiaries in Gabon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, France and Equatorial Guinea have also gotten certified, and the group’s remaining units are in the process of doing so.

The lender is still making up its mind on the amount of shares it will sell and whether to do so for one of its units or at the group level. The plan is to float between 5% and 10% on the Central Africa Stock Exchange, which is based in Douala, the biggest city in Cameroon, and is known by its French acronym, BVMAC.

The move is more about “showing the bank’s transparency than about raising capital,” said Oyima, who chairs the BVMAC board. “We have enough equity capital.”

Part of the capital will be deployed to complete payment to the Republic of Congo for Societe General Congo. If the deal is approved by the regulator, the former SocGen asset would be absorbed into BGFIBank Congo by the end of 2024, said Oyima, declining to give the purchase amount.

The bank is also looking at deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Ivory Coast to grow market share.

“We’ll be looking to tap any opportunity that comes up in any of these countries,” he said. “This could be through an acquisition or through equity.”

Africa Expansion

The push comes as French and British banks have been shrinking their presence in Africa, creating an opportunity for regional players.

BNP Paribas SA and SocGen have scaled back to focus on core markets. Standard Chartered Plc and Barclays Plc have also been stepping away from African retail banking, with Barclays now only offering private, corporate and investment banking services.

“We’re developing products by Africans and for Africans,” Oyima said. “We understand the local environment better and appreciate risk differently.”

The banking group’s assets grew 9% to 5.3 trillion CFA franc ($8.7 billion) in 2023, compared with 2022, according to results published last week. Net banking income rose 20% to 303 billion CFA franc, and net interest income advanced 19% to 206 billion CFA franc.

It has a rating with the Abidjan-based Bloomfield Investment Corp., which has enabled it to issue debt in the regional market, but hasn’t sought an international rating, said Oyima.

“We would love to get a credit rating from a global agency on the strength of our own capacity to repay,” he said. “But a corporate rating can only be as good as the rating of the country where you are domiciled.”

Junta-led Gabon’s foreign-currency long-term sovereign debt rated Caa1 by Moody’s Investors Service, or seven levels below investment grade.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.