The shareholders of Zenith International Bank Plc, on Wednesday endorsed the board and management to raise additional capital of N100billion by way of public offering.
The approval was made known at the bank’s 26th Annual General Meeting(AGM) held yesterday, in Lagos.
The shareholders added that the additional capital of N100 billion should be raised in the form of public offering, rights issue or any other method considered robust by the board in local or international market or combination of both.
They also approved that the bank’s share capital be raised to N25 Billion, comprising N20 billion by the creation of additional 10 billion ordinary shares of 50 kobo each.
Speaking at the meeting, Mr Sunny Nwosu, Founder, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN), lauded the bank for the enhanced performance and final dividend of N1.77 per share in spite of challenging operating environment.
Nwosu added that the bank needed to map out strategies aimed at bringing operating expenses to reduce operating cost. He said that the management must put machineries in place to ensure all loans were recovered.
Consequently, Mr Nona Awo, a shareholder, pointed out that the bank needed to drive down its unclaimed dividend figure of N3 billion as at Dec. 31, 2016.
Awo said that the bank should increase deposit drive by extending tentacles across the country, especially to unbanked areas.
Mr Peter Amangbo, the bank’s Group Managing Director, confirmed that the bank was working closely with registrars to bring down the unclaimed dividend figure.
Amangbo assured the shareholders that the bank would continue to work hard to grow deposit base.
He stated that the company’s focus was on ways to satisfy its esteemed customers with efficient and effective service delivery mechanism.
The bank declared a 23 per cent surge in profit after tax (PAT) of N129.65 billion for the financial year ended Dec, 31, 2016 as against N105.66 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2015. Its profit before tax (PBT) rose by 25 per cent to N156.75 compared N125.63 billion declared in the previous period of 2015.
Hence, gross earnings went up by 17.4 per cent to N507. 99 billion compared to N432.54 billion recorded in 2015.
Its non-interest income increased by 45.9 per cent to N25.59 billion due to an 809 per cent increase in foreign exchange revaluation gains of N25.6 billion.
This, however, declined by 10 per cent from the N8.2 billion reported in nine months of 2016.
The risk financial assets rose drastically by 106.4 per cent to N32.35 billion in 2016 and 34.6 per cent based on quarter-on-quarter to N10.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016.
The result culminated to a final dividend of N1.77 per share to investors against N1.55 per share dividend raked by investors in the parallel period of 2015 and interim dividend of 25k.
Source : Independent
