Shareholders of adb Bank have voted to limit the powers of the Bank of Ghana and the government in appointing all the directors to the board of the bank.
Per the new regulation shareholders with more than 10 percent stake will be allowed to appoint a member unto the board while government appoints three directors.
The decision was taken at an Extraordinary Annual General Meeting called by Belstar Capital Limited—which has 34 percent shares in the bank.
Speaking to Citi Business News the Deputy Managing Director of Belstar Capital Limited, Patrick Kingsley-Nynah explained that the new regulation was needed due to the new shareholder composition of the bank.
“The purpose for calling this Extraordinary General Meeting was to change the regulations of the company to reflect the new shareholders. You will recall that the government of Ghana and Bank of Ghana were the sole shareholders of adb shareholding until the Initial Public Offer which was effected in December 2016,” he said.
“Because the offer was successful we had about 430 plus change stakeholders coming into the company, and the company was subsequently listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange,” he recalled.
He argued that with the change in the composition of the shareholders, was appropriate for the investors to have a say in the affairs of the bank by having representatives at the board level.
“So if you have 450 people, out of the 325 million cedis that was raised by adb during the IPO , Belstar and its associated companies contributed 312 million, so you will not put your 312 million cedis and not want to at least have a say in the direction of the company,” he explained.
Mr. Kingsley-Nynah stated that it was important for the meeting to be held to correct the situation before an AGM is organized.
“The regulations had to be changed. It wasn’t going to be possible for the other shareholders to appoint the directors , because the old regulation had it that there were only two shareholders, Bank of Ghana and government and that has change,” he said.
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By: Lawrence Segbefia/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
