Nigeria has maintained its class ‘A’ Shareholder status on the African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim Bank) Board of Directors, as Egypt and Uganda joined the category.
The bank, at its 19th Annual General Meeting in Addis Ababa, elected Egypt’s Central Bank Governor, Mr Gamal Abde-Aziz, and Dr Louis Kirangwa, the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Uganda, to join Nigeria’s Minister of State for Finance, Dr Yerima Ngama, and Mr Stefan Luis-Francois of African Development Bank on its Board of Directors for Class ‘A’ shareholders.
The bank whose total assets rose by 612 per cent to 3.7 billion dollars between 2003 and 2012, also elected Mrs Caroline Abel, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Seychelles, and Mr John Panonetsy Mangundya, as Group Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe.
They joined Mr Jean-Marie Benoit Mani, National Director for Cameroon of the Central Bank of Central African States as well as Mr Victor-Jerome Nembelessini-Silue, former Director-General of the National Investment Bank of Cote d’Ivoire as class `B` directors.
The bank renewed the terms of the current Class `C` Directors, including Mr Anil Dua of Standard Chartered Bank, UK, Mr Liu Liange of the China Eximbank and those of the two Independent Directors, Mr Ronald Sibongiseni Ntuli of the Thelo Group of Companies, South Africa and Mr Hugh Kennedy, Chairman of TransAfrica Holdings Limited.
Currently, four seats each have been allocated to Classes `A’ and `B’ shareholders on the Bank’s Board of Directors and two each to Class `C’ and independent shareholders as no seat was allocated to Class `D’ shareholders, pending attainment of a subscription threshold of 10 per cent by that class.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the President of the Bank code-named Afrexim Bank, Jean-Louis Ekra, told its owners at the AGM of shareholders that Net Income also soared by 251 per cent during the period to hit 65 million dollars.
Ekra said shareholders’ funds equally rose to end the year 2012 at 612 million dollars, “largely from retained earnings and accretion to reserves. “Efficiency measures were also good; return on assets and return on equity averaged the 2003-2012 period at fourper cent and 10 per cent respectively.”
According to him, cost/income ratio and net interest margins also averaged the period at levels of 22 per cent and three per cent, while non-performing loan (NPL) ratio remained quite below the industry level, averaging less than one per cent during the period.
Ekra attributed the financial performance to solid internal controls and risk management introduced as the bank grew.
“For 2012, the Bank’s total assets grew by 30 per cent, to reach 3.7 billion dollars, when compared to 2011 while net income rose by 12 per cent and shareholders’ funds grew by 20 per cent, Return on Equity was 11.5 per cent and NPL ratio remained good at two per cent.”
The president announced that the bank’s board had recommended a dividend payment of 14.6 million dollars.
The meeting subsequently approved the resolutions and accepted the bank’s annual report for 2012; the audited financial statements for the year ended Dec. 31, 2012; the dividend declaration for 2012; and the appointment of the external auditors for the 2013 financial year.
