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Shareholders approve N40bn rights offer for Unity Bank

By BusinessNews Staff on December 26, 2013

Shareholders of Unity Bank have authorized directors of the bank to raise additional capital of N40 billion through Rights issue and Special/Private placement of its shares.

The capital raising exercise is part of the bank’s business expansion strategy in the retail segment of the financial market.

This was among the special resolutions passed at an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting of the Bank which was held in Lagos on Monday. Shareholders authorized that directors of the bank to take all necessary steps including initiating and negotiating mergers and or acquisition or any form of business combination or arrangement with company /companies or institutions whether foreign or local for the purpose of shoring up the bank’s capital.

They also endorsed the proposal to raise the share capital of the bank to N60 billion of 120 billion ordinary shares of 50 kobo each; reconstruct the shares of the bank in ratio of one reconstructed ordinary share of 50 kobo each for every four ordinary shares of 50 kobo each previously held by shareholders.

The resolutions reached at the EGM are expected to pave way for a fresh injection of huge capital into the institution, currently ranked among the top ten banks in the country in terms of branch network. This is geared towards making the Bank attain top-of-mind recall with customers as their Retail Bank of Choice.

The decisions reached by the shareholders at the meeting, also buttress information that has been in the public domain over the last few months of an impending sizeable equity investment in the Bank. Two foreign and one domestic venture capitalist, keen on investing in high potential financial service operators in Nigeria, had been closely linked repeatedly in these reports.

The Bank had recently disclosed that some of its immediate plans for provision of banking products and services directly to individual customers will leverage on an integrated multichannel approach which will include the opening up of new branches – electronic and physical – across the country and a massive drive for the adoption of its internet and mobile banking platforms.

[Vanguard]

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