The Board and stakeholders of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc have agreed to vigorously pursue the recapitalization of the bank in order to restore it to its pristine position in the banking industry.

The stakeholders also agreed that the Board and management should take all necessary steps that would fast track the recapitalization of the bank by strategically combining the AMCON option, core-investor and shareholders’ rights issue in order to raise the capital needed to enable the bank function optimally.

This was part of the consensus reached at the stakeholders’ forum initiated by the bank and  held at the Oriental Hotels, Lagos recently. The forum comprised of major shareholders in the bank. This included staff, pensioners, some shareholders association leaders, large shareholders (some of whom are customers of the bank),opinion leaders, captain of industries, etc.

In their submission, the stakeholders opined that the core investor should be an investor which had been existed for years with known financial pedigree and global clout that will give Union Bank leverage in the industry.
The forum also suggested that the Board and management should involve credible shareholders with substantial holdings to be part of the engagement processes with interested investors.
In his opening remarks, the Board Chairman, Prof Musa Yakubu, reiterated that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s intervention in the bank was based on poor corporate governance, high level of non-performing loans, capital inadequacy and liquidity issues.  However, with its forebearance, Union Bank had remained surefooted to address these challenges with the support and understanding of its stakeholders particularly customers.

In a graphic presentation, the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive, Mrs Funke Osibodu took the stakeholders through multitude of issues which bordered on several regulatory infractions relating to violation of prudential guidelines, poor financial control and accounting, suppression of expenses, unreconciled items, poor corporate governance, prevalence on non performing loans, etc.

She said that with the determination to restore the bank to reckoning, the management  focused on the strong and positive brand attributes of the Bank to rekindle stakeholder’s confidence.  Accordingly, the bank was being repositioned in all its operations

to ensure excellent customers services, through redeployment of key and senior managers to be market facing. Additional staff is being recruited with training to be done largely through an e-learning platform. All staff are to be performance driven.

The physical infrastructure of the bank is being upgraded in branches with some branches designated as flagship branches as well as optimally utilizing its information technology.