By Udeme Ekwere

STANBIC IBTC Bank Plc has adopted the holding company structure in line with the provisions of the new banking regime, which requires banks to divest from non-core banking activities.

The Chief Executive Officer, Stanbic IBTC, Mr. Chris Newson, who disclosed this on Monday, said the decision to adopt the new structure was to enable the bank to keep its non-bank units under a new regulatory framework.

He spoke on the sidelines of the 2011 Investors Forum organised by the bank.

He added that since investors liked their structure, the bank would carry out its operations under investment banking, personal banking and wealth units, “which comprise asset and pension management.”

The Chairman, Stanbic IBTC, Mr. Atedo Peterside, has, however, said that the ongoing crisis in some countries in the Middle-East and North Africa will not affect the Nigerian market.

Peterside, who also spoke at the investors’ forum, said the crisis was not likely to extend to Nigeria because the Nigerian environment was different.

He said, “I do not hesitate to state to our investors and others that I do not foresee a similar situation in Nigeria as has occurred in Egypt and some other North-African countries. This is because the circumstances in Nigeria and over there are totally different.

“The issues in those affected countries are as a result of an angry population and sit-tight leaders, and that does not apply to us here. The system here does not allow for autocratic regimes, because we got rid of such autocracy over here some years ago. So, it definitely will not affect us here.”

He, therefore, urged investors not to panic, adding that the Nigerian economy was one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

The stockbroking arm of Stanbic IBTC has foreign investors as its major clients.

Also speaking at the forum, the Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms. Arunma Oteh, assured investors that sub-Saharan Africa remained an “investor’s paradise.”

According to her, the decades of investment in macro-economic reforms in major African countries have increased the potential to bring huge returns to investors.

She added that various attempts by the regulator to transform the Nigerian capital market into a world-class market had translated into deepening the breadth of the market, which was visible in terms of volumes recorded on the NSE.

“Here in Nigeria, we have no choice to build a world-class market, as this will enable us to address Nigeria’s huge infrastructural deficit and reduce the cost of doing business by 40 per cent,” she said,

She added that SEC was taking steps towards upgrading a new code of corporate governance, effective April 4, 2011, adding that “we are ensuring that companies declare openly, the compliance with the code of corporate governance.”

Source: Punch