By InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Staff of Intercontinental Bank Plc (IB Plc) are resigning en-masse following the acquisition of the Bank by Access Bank Plc and the tough working conditions given to them by the acquiring Bank, www.investadvocateng.com can authoritatively report.
Our Correspondent gathered that between Wednesday February 01 2012 and today Thursday February 02 2012, the staffs of acquired Intercontinental Bank are calling the bluff of Access Bank and are resigning en-masse because of the stringent working condition given to them.
It was also gathered that the upfront hitherto enjoyed by Intercontinental Bank staff were stopped and they are now overtaxed which has affected and caused a reduction in their take home pay to the tune of about 20 percent (20%).
Also, www.investadvocateng.com gathered that some of these resigning staffs are not doing a proper handover.
One of the Source told www.investadvocateng.com that at the Ring Road branch of the Bank in Ibadan South West Nigeria where Intercontinental Bank has a Regional Office, most of the Staff has resigned.
It was also gathered that a General Manager South West operations of Access Bank came to appeal to the staff not to go; the Access Bank GM addressed them at about 8.00am to 18.15am requesting they return to their work that they would be accommodated and taken care off.
However, it was gathered that the over 1,000 Intercontinental staff whose appointment were terminated last week are yet to be paid their entitlements; that it was being prepared.
The Source say the stringent working conditions given to those staff whose appointment were not terminated is that they are given a period of six months to live up to expectation or risk being sacked.
These stringent working conditions are in the form of outrageous targets and cut in their welfare packages.
According to the Source, some of the supports staffs are yet to be paid their January 2012 salary which is suppose to be paid on the 22nd of every month. The source said that the January 2012 salary was paid on January 30th and yet some of the Support Staff names were omitted which they claimed was due to biometric errors.
As earlier reported by a Nigerian Daily following the completion of the acquisition of Intercontinental Bank by Access Bank, about 1, 500 employees of Intercontinental Bank last week had their appointments terminated.
It was also gathered that most customers of Intercontinental Bank are threatening to close their accounts with the Bank as they claimed not wanting to do anything with Access Bank.
Access Bank on December 06 2011 in a notice to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and made available to www.investadvocateng.com said it would conclude its proposed merger with Intercontinental Bank in the First Quarter (Q1) of year 2012.
According to Access Bank, the proposed merger will be effected through a Scheme of Merger pursuant to Part XII of the Investments and Securities Act (No 29) of 2007 (“Scheme of Mergerâ€ÂÂ) that when concluded, will result in Intercontinental Bank being merged with Access Bank, leaving Access Bank as the surviving entity.
The Bank said as earlier announced, it was envisaged that after the acquisition of Intercontinental Bank, Access Bank would merge its operations with those of Intercontinental Bank within 18 – 24 months. “We have been able to fast-track the process and now aim to achieve single entity status by March, 2012. We are pleased that this acceleration has been made possible by the success of our pre-merger integration processes leading to the achievement of key milestones well ahead of initial target dates†the Notice said.
Access Bank affirmed that this has been assisted by the high level of cooperation and support received from all stakeholders to date. The acceleration has also been necessitated by the successful completion of change of control at the parent as well as subsidiary levels of Intercontinental Bank.
“To ensure that the momentum is sustained and that value is preserved, Access Bank has decided to accelerate the merger timetable in line with the progress of integration. This is particularly important as some critical aspects of the integration exercise such as customer and product integration will only be completed subsequent to the legal merger of both Banks†it said.
A call to Victor Etuokwu, the new Managing Director (MD) of the Bank did not go as at the time of filling in this Report. The line was said to be switched off.
Also, as at the time of publishing this story, efforts to Contact Access Bank’s Austin Edoja-Peters, Head, Corporate Affairs was fruitless as he failed to pick his calls or respond to two text messages sent to him by www.investadvocateng.com to give the Banks side of the story.