Wema Bank gets Shareholders’ Nod to Raise N40bn

Wema bank Plc has received the approval of its shareholders at a court-ordered meeting to restructure its capital ahead of a rights issue in early 2022.

The bank disclosed this in a statement on Friday titled ‘Wema Bank obtains shareholders’ consent for a capital restructure, N40bn rights issue’.

It said the approval was obtained at an extraordinary general meeting where its shareholders unanimously voted for the scheme of arrangement to reconstruct its shares.

According to the statement, the bank has shares in issue of over 38 billion units, and the shareholders consented to a reconstruction of one share for every three held.

Commenting on the meeting, Ademola Adebise, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are pleased with the support given and confidence expressed by our shareholders.

“We have come a long way in the last decade – from negative capital, we now have over N60bn in shareholders’ funds and a balance sheet size above N1tn.

“With this approval of shareholders, we will begin the rights issuance to raise our capital base to over N100bn. This gives us room to increase our financial intermediation and further scale up our business.”

Adebisi also commented on some recent issues, including reports alleging a face-off between the management of Wema Bank and one of its customers.

He said, “The bank’s attention had been drawn to recent media mentions of certain customer obligations, and reassures our shareholders and customers that the bank has and will continue to operate with the highest level of due process, corporate governance policies and procedures.

“ALAT, the bank’s flagship digital banking solution, continues to deliver results and recently won the ‘Best Digital Bank of the Year Award’ 2021. Wema Bank expects to close the year strongly with improved returns to shareholders.”