The cover of African Business (newsstands) has an interesting list ranking banks according to shareholders equity - Tier 1 capital - as defined by Basle. Difficult to get it online though http://www.allbusiness.com/africa/1085155-1.html

Interesting points:
1. Number of banks in top 100 by country
Nigeria......16
Egypt........12
Tunisia.......9
South Africa..8
Morocco.......8
Algeria.......7
Angola........5
Kenya.........5
Libya.........4
Ghana.........3

2. Capital___Assets by country:
South Africa...35%___45%
Nigeria........16%___8%
Morocco........11%___11%
Egypt..........9%____12%
Algeria........7%____6%
Tunisia........3%____2%
Libya..........3%____4%
Angola.........2%____2%
Togo..........1.6%__0.8%
Kenya.........1.5%__0.7%

3. Sum of assets is x13 Sum of Capital in top 100:
Leaders are Libya with x22 capital, Egypt with x19 capital, South Africa with x16 capital.........Nigeria with x6 capital, Kenya with x7 capital

4. East Africa Top 15 includes:
Equity Bank.....no 57
KCB Bank........no 58
Barclays Bank...no 67
COOP Bank.......no 71
NBK.............no 91
Stanbic Uganda..no 97

@kizee1 good question. Date of results for both is Dec-09

Equity Bank capital at $316m and assets at $1,390m CAR at 22.7% and profits of $58m
KCB Bank capital at $314m and assets at $2,689m CAR at 11.7% and profits of $56m

@kizee1, also grew suspicious. Just check Dec 09 numbers at NSE site though, and I see...
Equity Kes 4,234m profit before tax
KCB Kes 4,084m profit for the year (pbt 6.3b)
Ooops! Could this have been the cause of the error? But it's there in black and white.

Does this bring into question the whole glossy report by this publisher?
Me my question was where the hell is Standard Chartered???

@kizee1 @guru267 cheers for the help. It seems I got myself muddled. The report is right after all...

Equity Kes 4,234m profit after tax ($58m)
KCB Kes 4,084m profit after tax ($56m)

KCB is an elephant where Equity is a buffalo. One is a huge monolith with no idea of what returns on capital mean; the other is agile and returns capital almost as good as the ultra-cautious StanChart

The report seems correct. Actuall, the figures for PAT are correct for Equity and KCB. The difference is the tax for that year. Remember institutions that are listed in the NSE get to enjoy corporation tax rate @20% for five years instead of the normal 30% and that is where equity benefited since its less than five years since they listed.

I mean the first time the institution goes public either through an IPO or placing,then they enjoy that benefit for five years before it reverts back to the normal rate. Its an incentive to encourage companies to go public.

Thats why equity are enjoying the benefit