Shareholders of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) have been assured of dividends soon as the Bank continues on the path of sustainable growth and profit making.
According to the Board Chairman, Lawyer Alex Barnasko, under his leadership the Bank was now making profit and with a well laid out strategy shareholders will soon enjoy dividends from the Bank.
Speaking at the 33rd Virtual Annual General Meeting of the Bank held in Accra which was streamed live for majority of shareholders due to the current Coronavirus Pandemic he explained that as at the end of December 31, 2016, the Bank had a negative income surplus of GH₵188.8 million thus its inability to pay dividend until the negative income surplus had been completely written off.
“The Bank of Ghana (BoG) regulation requires the Bank to completely write-of accumulated operating losses from its normal operations before it declares divideneds,” he added.
He mentioned that though the bank recorded a profit of ¢14.8 million in 2019, compared to ¢5.9 million in 2018, it is constrained from paying dividends until the accumulated negative income surplus has been completely written off.
Mr Bernasko stated that measures were being put in place to strenghten the banks loan monitoring and collection to reduce its high Non- Performing Loans (NPLs) as well as intensifying its retail deposit mobilisation drive.
ADB showed some gains in its interest margin which improved from 55.4% in the preceding year to 61.1% in 2019 while Retail deposit also increased by 31.2%, from ¢2.6 billion in 2018 to ¢3.4 billion in 2019.
“With the strategy put in place by the Board and Management we are on the path of increasing our profit and also reducing our NPLs to make it possible to pay dividends,” The Board Chairman noted.
For his part, the Managing Director of the Bank, Dr. John Kofi Mensah has revealed that the bank will intensify its e-commerce products and services.
Shareholders also agreed to change the name of the Bank from Agricultural Development Bank Limited to Agricultural Development Bank Public Limited Company.
