By Gbenga Agbana

Friday, 17 Dec 2010

Shareholders of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, on Thursday approved its reports and accounts for the financial years ended March 31, 2009 and December 31, 2009, at its 40th and 41st Annual General Meetings held in Maiduguri, Borno State.

A statement from the company said the shareholders commended the board and management for their efforts to move the bank forward, despite the daunting challenges.

They noted that the bank was already on the path of recovery and profitability as indicated in its unaudited results as at September 30, 2010.

They also commended the banking reforms initiated by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, and stressed the need for the staff and other stakeholders to cooperate with the management in order to move the bank forward.

They called on the management to pursue debtors aggressively, with a view to recovering the bank‘s debt and urged the management to fast-track the bank‘s recapitalisation, saying the process was important.

For the bank to be reckoned with, both locally and internationally, they further advised the management to endeavour to address all issues related to the staff and pensioners to ensure sustained industrial peace and stability of the bank.

According to the reports presented at the meeting, the bank‘s total deposits for the nine-month period increased from N758.39bn at the end of March 2009 to N782.04bn in December 2009, representing a growth of three per cent.

Gross earnings fell by 24.6 per cent from N129.1bn in March 2009 to N97.4bn in December, due to re-classification on non-performing loans.

For the group, gross earnings fell by 22.3 per cent from N146.3bn in March 2009 to N113.7bn in December 2009.

Also, loss before and after taxation increased from N66.9bn and N71.052bn in March 2009, respectively, to N285.37bn and N286.2bn in December 2009.

The loss, according to the statement, increased due to the substantial provisions that were required to cover loan losses, unfunded staff related obligations, differences in the books that were not reconciled and some expenses that were not in the books.

In her review, the Managing Director, Mrs. Funke Osibodu said that the bank accelerated the rejuvenation of the workforce during the review year, by employing new staff across different cadres and had also identified 55 branches in different locations across the country that were being developed as model branches for the bank.

Source: Punch