According to Olasupo Olusi, Managing Director of the Bank of Industry, BoI, since 2017, the bank has raised more than $5 billion from global capital markets through loan syndications, Eurobonds, and green finance instruments.
This was announced by Mr. Olusi during the news conference for the BoI’s 65th anniversary in Lagos on Thursday.
He outlined the bank’s development from its founding in 1959 as the Investment Company of Nigeria, or ICON, to its 2001 rebranding as the Bank of Industry.
In November, the bank also completed a global loan syndication that collected at least two billion euros, according to Mr. Olusi. This was the greatest fundraising in the history of the Bank of Ireland and the largest syndication in the history of African DFls.
He explained that the bank was able to achieve the milestones through the years due to its partners.
According to him, BoI has established strategic partnerships with key local public and private institutions as well as global financial and multilateral institutions to enable the bank to fulfill its mandate, effectively.
“BoI has partnerships with state governments, and foundations to establish the ‘Matching Fund’ scheme.
“We also have partnerships with trade associations, such as the National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), and Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), to deepen real sector financing.
“BoI recently signed a partnership agreement with SMEDAN to provide Nano and Micro Enterprises in Nigeria with a one billion dollar fund at a single digit interest rate.
“We have partnerships with several other public agencies like NCDMB, to support specific sectors,” he said.
In November 2023, the Federal Government designated the bank as the executing agent for the $200 billion FGN MSME Intervention Fund, Mr. Olusi continued.
These comprised a N75 billion MSME Intervention Sector Fund, a N75 billion Manufacturing Sector Fund, a 50 billion Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme, and PCGS.
Many organizations, like the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Finance Corporation (AFC), the Investment Climate Reform (ICR) program, and the African Guarantee Fund (AGF), are also part of our strategic relationships.
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The United States Export Import Bank (USEXIM), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) are further organizations, according to Olusi.
According to him, the bank, in the last 12 months, has also revised its strategy to focus on impact and introduced various strategic initiatives in alignment with President Bola Tinubu’s ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ and in response to emerging macroeconomic issues.
Additionally, Shekarau Omar, Executive Director for MSMEs at the Bank of India, disclosed that the bank intends to distribute N120 billion to two million MSMEs by the year’s end.
Mr. Omar stated that the bank had already exceeded its initial objective of N103 billion to be disbursed to 1.5 million MSMEs in 2024.
He claims that the bank had paid out N107 billion to more MSMEs as of October than it had initially anticipated.
With an estimated 39–40 million enterprises, Mr. Omar emphasized the potential of Nigeria’s MSME sector.
