Credit Ratings: S&P acquires Nigerian firm Agusto & Co, ten days before the launch of the African agency AfCRA

S&P Global Ratings has acquired a majority stake in Agusto & Co, a pan-African credit rating agency based in Nigeria, a transaction announced in July 2026 and analyzed on September 25, 2026, by African Business. The acquisition comes less than two weeks before the official launch of the Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA), scheduled for October 7, 2026, in Port Louis, Mauritius.

A Nigerian firm present in four countries

Agusto & Co rates public and private issuers in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, and Ghana. According to African Business, it will continue to operate as a distinct rating entity, in accordance with obligations set by local regulators. Samira Mensah, head of S&P's national ratings in Africa, describes the operation as a logical step to expand and deepen credit markets where it makes sense.

The trial of a contested system

For years, African governments have criticized major global agencies for producing assessments that do not reflect the realities of the continent. The argument is as much economic as it is political: a rating deemed too harsh increases borrowing costs, weighs on public budgets, and ignores reforms already underway. S&P and Moody's deny any bias, notes CNBC Africa. The fact that the leader among them is now investing in an African agency is in itself an admission that the criticism has had an impact.

AfCRA, the tool the African Union wants to counter with

The Africa Credit Rating Agency is supported by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an organ of the African Union, which presents its launch as "a bold step" toward greater autonomy and African financial sovereignty. According to CNBC Africa, the agency is to be capitalized by private investors, without state shareholding: an architecture chosen precisely to preempt suspicions of complacency toward the rated governments. Misheck Mutize, a lead expert at the APRM cited by the same media outlet, estimated this summer that the project had progressed faster than expected.

What is at stake now

Sovereign ratings dictate African states' access to international markets and the price of their Eurobonds, recalls CNBC Africa. For the APRM, everything will therefore depend on credibility: an African agency will only be useful if international investors accept its verdicts, even when they are unfavorable to a member state. At the same time, the global groups that AfCRA intends to compete with are gaining a foothold in existing African agencies. The battle for the continent's credit rating will be fought on both fronts simultaneously.