By Peter OBIORA investadvocate
Feb 04 2011 15.32 GMT
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Access Bank Plc has divested its interest from its non-banking subsidiaries.
This was contained a notice Friday February 04 2011 by the Bank to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and made available to investadvocate in Lagos Nigeria.
The notice reads thus: “The Bank has notified The Exchange that it intends to completely divest from its non-banking subsidiaries namely, United Securities Limited and Access Investments and Securities Limited and integrate the operations of its Mortgage Banking subsidiary, Access Homes and Mortgages Limited into its Retail Banking Division” the notice said.
Access Bank affirmed that the decision followed the approval it received from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to bring its operations in conformity with the provisions of CBN’s Regulations on the Scope of Banking Activities and Ancillary Matters No. 3. 2010.
This is coming on the heels of announcement by the Bank that it has received the Central Bank’s approval for its compliance plan to bring its operations in conformity with the provisions of CBN’s Regulations on the Scope of Banking Activities following the Apex Bank’s repeal of the Universal Banking Guidelines.
Access Bank had earlier affirmed that the decision to exit its non-banking subsidiaries was taken following a rigorous evaluation of the impact of the divestment on its long term performance objectives.
As earlier reported, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (GMD/CEO) of Access Bank, affirmed that by opting to divest from its non-banking subsidiaries, the Bank has chosen to focus on its core commercial banking operations which account for over 98% of our earnings.
“In arriving at this decision, we took into consideration the growing global and local concerns regarding the regulation of Universal Banks and found it prudent to be insulated from the regulatory challenges which Universal Banks will face in future”. he said.
According to Access Bank, in view of the measures of best practice which they had undertaken in the past, the Bank was confident that its transition to operating under an international banking licence will be smooth and seamless.
It said the Bank’s shareholders fund of N179 billion (audited) is significantly in excess of the N50 billion International banking license requirement. Also, the requirement for the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”) has been met by Access Bank well in advance of the January 2012 regulatory deadline.
In the same vein, the Bank also informed The Exchange that Dr. Adewumi Desalu has resigned from its Board, effective January28, 2011; following Dr. Desolu’s resignation Access Bank Plc now has thirteen (13) Board members, made up of six (6) Executive Directors and seven (7) Non-Executive Directors.
