Two U.S. banks are considering opening offices in Nigeria, part of a “big wave of investors” planning to move into Africa’s most populous country, Finance Minister Olusegun Aganga said.

“I’ve spoken to two U.S. banks that are considering setting up here,” Aganga said in an interview in the capital, Abuja, on Feb. 18. “One of them is at a more advanced stage than the other.” He declined to name either institution.

Nigeria is looking for foreign investors in the financial industry after the central bank was forced to bail out the banking system in 2009 when equity investors failed to pay back loans. The central bank fired the chief executive officers of eight of the country’s 24 lenders and injected 620 billion naira ($4.1 billion) into the industry.

The government in sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest economy after South Africa is also investing in roads, rail lines, houses and schools to attract foreign investors keen to provide goods and services for its more than 150 million people. President Goodluck Jonathan announced plans in August to end the monopoly of state-owned Power Holding Co. of Nigeria and open the industry to private investment.

“Infrastructural reform is a big thing we’re doing,” Aganga said. “The power aspect of it, we’re continuing as planned, as set out in the roadmap.”

Under the program, the country plans to sell six state- owned transmission and 11 thermal-generation companies by July, Minister of State for Power, Nuhu Wya, said in November. Investors have until March 4 to express their interest in the companies, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, the Abuja-based agency that helps sell state-owned assets, said in the statement on Feb. 17.
Power Shortages

Power cuts occur daily in Nigeria, where demand for electricity is almost double the current supply of more than 3,000 megawatts. The government wants to increase output to 14,019 megawatts by 2013. The bureau held meetings in Dubai and London last month and in New York and Johannesburg this month to meet potential investors.

Foreign investors are also looking to build refineries, petrochemical plants and fertilizer factories in the country, Aganga said, without naming them.

“What I can tell you is that they are quality names, they are in major sectors of the economy and we are talking about large sums of money,” he said.

Nigerian Bottling Co. Plc, the bottler of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite and Fanta, plans to expand its business with a 45 billion naira ($293 million) investment over the next three years, said Aganga, a former executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The bottler is a unit of Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co., the world’s second-biggest bottler of Coca-Cola beverages, after Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. The company employs 6,000 people, operating 13 bottling plants, 80 depots and more than 200,000 sales outlets in Nigeria, according to NBC’s website.