South African financial services firm Sanlam plans to start operating in Nigeria soon and has found a partner in the west African country, its chief executive said on Thursday. CEO Johan van Zyl told Reuters the venture would cost 50 million rand ($6.36 million) for the first 3 years and said the firm was already recruiting staff in the country.
"We're a bit more advanced than discussions," he said in an interview. "We've applied for a licence and we expect that licence in about 3 weeks and once we have that, we're going." Zyl said he expected Sanlam's full-year results to be "substantially better", despite volatile debt and equity markets, which he expects to deteriorate further this year. The firm reported a 24 percent drop in diluted headline EPS for the six months to end June earlier on Thursday.
Sanlam also plans to open 200 offices in the next three years in northern India, part of its existing venture with Indian financial services company Shriram Group, Zyl said. He added that Sanlam was also talking to people in the Middle East, but would not give details on how advanced discussions were.