💾 Big Idea: Buy a Business

PLUS: How To Terrify Ethiopian Banks

Welcome to the 80th edition of ፍራንክ Digest!

Your weekly brief on all things Finance and Investing. Quick, enjoyable reads for busy professionals in 5 minutes or less.

Here’s what’s coming your way:

  • đŸ§± Marketplace For Businesses: Ensuring Continuity

  • đŸšȘ Meet the Kenyan Banks Knocking On Our Front Door

  • đŸ—ïž The Key Takeaways

Thanks for reading!

👋 Buy Bye Business

Economy

Ever notice how in Ethiopia, people proudly say, “I want to start my own business” but you almost never hear anyone say, “I want to buy one” or “I just sold mine”?

Strange, right? Because if you think about it, buying a business is basically starting one
 minus the migraine.

You get the suppliers, the staff who already know what they’re doing and (if you’re lucky) loyal customers who’ll keep coming back even if the ሳምቡሳ tastes just a little different.

A Marketplace

Think of it as telebirr’s ZemenGebeya, but for entrepreneurs. Instead of scrolling endlessly for the next phone or fridge, you might just end up owning a bakery in Koye Feche or a ዱቄቔ factory in Kality.

We’ve all seen it, a once-thriving business slowly being run down because the owner decided to “move on”. Some retire, some want to try something new and a few are just done with the entrepreneurial rollercoaster.

But here’s the thing, when a business shuts down, it’s not just a lost storefront. Jobs disappear, experience evaporates and our favorite brand vanishes. Continuity matters for owners, for workers and for the economy.

Selling a business in Ethiopia isn’t exactly a walk in the park ሃውኀቚር. For starters, many businesses here lack the secret sauce (intellectual property), a good location or reputational track-record (a.k.a Goodwill).

Then there’s the cultural part: selling is often seen as “giving up” especially for non-tech businesses , not as “cashing out smartly”. This is where ይሉኝታ works against you.

Add in a lack of valuation experts, a maze of paperwork and the sure thing of a tax authority drama (you know what I mean) and it’s no wonder people just quietly shut their doors instead of selling.

Meanwhile, On The Other Side Of Town


There’s a growing crowd of people with the money and motivation to buy something ready-made. Career professionals looking for a change. Diaspora investors nostalgic for the homeland. People who came into sudden wealth and don’t want to start from scratch.

They’re ready, they just don’t know where to look.

A one-stop shop would make things a lot easier where you find:

  • Verified listings come with real numbers such as revenue, profit, location, maybe even Google reviews

  • Smart matching pairs your interests. You search for food, hospitality, manufacturing, tech and instantly match with opportunities that fit your wallet and your vibe.

  • Transition support ensures sellers don’t just hand over the keys and vanish. They stick around for a few weeks to show you the ropes, keep the customers happy and maybe even reveal the recipe to that legendary “secret sauce.”

This Does Work

Globally, people are catching on that buying an existing business is often smarter than starting one from scratch.

Platforms like BizBuySell don’t just list businesses, they provide learning resources and offer financing help.

And honestly, Ethiopia is ready for its own version.

We’ve got:

We’ve come across a local platform Kulfshyach and we’d like to hear from our loyal readers if you’ve had any experience with ownership transfers. Make use of our comment section.

Big Picture

This isn’t just about buying and selling.

It’s about keeping the engine of the local economy running smoothly by preserving jobs, transferring knowledge and giving good businesses a second (or third) life.

It’s time to make “selling your business” as normal as “starting one”. Because in a country as entrepreneurial as Ethiopia, continuity might just be the next big innovation. A small but mighty impact.

ፍራንክ Picks 

Kenyan Banks Are Looking For Parking

Police Academy Parking GIF

Banking

The Story in Three Lines

→ Kenya’s Equity Bank just posted 3rd quarter 2025 profit after tax of KSh 54.1 billion (~ ETB 64.4 billion). Yes, for 3 months. Not a typo.
→ Meanwhile, Awash Bank’s record 2024/25 full year profit before tax was about ETB 22.7 billion; a historic year by local standards, but our top private bank is completely dwarfed when you line it up against Equity’s scale.
→ Ethiopia is opening the door to foreign banks, and Kenya’s Equity & KCB banks are already knocking.


At home, Ethiopia’s private banks are having their best year on record.
Awash broke the scoreboard with ~ETB 22.7 billion pre-tax profit. Zemen’s numbers left shareholders singing ኄልልል! Wegagen surprised everyone. Even Lion Bank found its roar after a few uncertain years.

We’ve talked about the currency devaluation bump inflating profit gains across the board this year in our ‘Bankers are Smiling for the Cameras’ article a couple weeks ago. Only Nib Bank has so far seemed to buck this trend.

But step across the border town of ሞያሌ and the scale changes quickly.
Equity Group, the holding company behind Equity Bank, reported profit after tax of KSh 54.1 billion (~ ETB 64.4 billion) for Q3 2025. That’s the 3 months from July to September 2025.

To put it in perspective, Equity’s three-month profit after tax is almost 3 times Awash Bank’s full-year profit before tax!

It’s a clear sign of the scale, reach, and maturity gap between the two neighboring countries’ banking sectors.

How Big Is Big?

Short answer: very. Meet the guests from Nairobi.

Equity Group Holdings

  • Posted KSh 54.1 billion profit after tax in Q3 2025 alone, up 32% year-on-year.

  • Almost half its revenue, deposits and loans come from outside Kenya.

  • Operations span Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan and the DRC.

  • Digital-first, diversified income streams, deep regional turf.

  • A word of caution: Non-performing loans (defaults) stand at around 12% - waaay higher than Ethiopian banks’ average of around ~5%

KCB Group

  • Another regional banking giant with presence in seven countries.

  • Full-year profit after tax KSh 61.8 billion (~ETB 73.5 billion) for 2024/25

  • Assets run into the trillions of Kenyan shillings;

  • It has a ~455 branch network; less than half of Awash Bank’s, yet more than triple the profits. Talk about productivity!

  • A well-oiled regional machine, used to cross-border complexity and scale.

When you stack that kind of regional footprint against the domestic-focused Ethiopian banks, you see the gap.

So, What’s Your Point?

Glad you asked.

These regional champions operate on a different level, with more markets, bigger balance sheets, better digital systems and deeper funding lines.

Meanwhile, the doorman to Ethiopia’s banking sector just removed the velvet rope. The National Bank of Ethiopia now accepts foreign bank applications; parliament passed the law; directives are live.

Thus, Kenyan lenders have their GPS set for Addis. Equity has been quietly mapping its entry paths under the new rules. KCB, for its part, has been churning solid earnings too and remains the other elephant circling Addis having discussed acquiring up to 40% of a local bank.

What Happens If/When They Enter?

The first thing Kenya’s big players will say when they shop for an Ethiopian partner? “That’s a cute looking bank you got there!
So, uhh
how’s your digital transformation going?”

Expect more digital everything: smarter apps, merchant services, fast cross-border payments etc. Things like supply chain finance, cash management and mobile lending will go up another gear.

Yes, they’ll lend aggressively, as seen with Equity Bank’s 12% default rate, but will rely heavily on data and dashboards doing so; local banks will have to swap lending on intuition and relationships for credit-risk models.

In short, they’ll be bringing capital, innovation, systems, competition and a different way of thinking about money. They’ve have seen the gap, smelled the opportunity, and they won’t be here just to blend in with more of the same. They’re here to raise the bar.

In ‘Too Many Banks, Too Little Bank’ , we’ve spoken extensively about how our 32 local banks would be well advised to consolidate into 5 or 6 big players to have any chance of staying relevant.

The Catch

Ethiopia is not an easy market: FX scarcity, regulatory learning curves, and digital payment systems still evolving. Safaricom’s early bumps are a cautionary tale for any optimism. But the rulebook for foreign banks to participate in our economy is there, and the prize (120+ million consumers, a formalizing economy, stock exchange on the horizon) is possibly worth a few bruises. The brave ones will try, the smart ones will adapt.

Frank’s Take

  • The Kenyans are already circling the parking lot. If you’re a local bank, assume your next competitor has offices in 5 countries and plans in quarters, not years.

  • Awash’s monster year is still a monster year. It just won’t bother Equity. Same sport, same pitch, completely different leagues.

  • If you’re running a bank in Addis, this might be your horror movie moment; the lights flicker, the Wi-Fi drops, and somewhere in the distance
 a Kenyan bank’s customer logs in successfully on the first try.

Thanks for sticking with us, ፍራንክ family! Keep those wallets smart and your inbox open - we’ll be sliding in next week!

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