By Nse Anthony-Uko
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has admitted an additional volume of 51.3 million ordinary shares of 50 kobo each of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc on the daily official list of the Exchange.
The additional shares were listed on NSE on December 4, 2017 and the shares arose from the bank’s Long Term Transformation Incentive Plan (LTTIP). NSE said with this listing of 51.3 million ordinary shares, the total issued and fully paid up shares of Union Bank now stood at 16.987 billion ordinary shares.
It will be recalled that Union Bank issued 12.13 billion ordinary shares of 50 kobo each to existing shareholders at N4.10 per share, in a bid to raise N49.73 billion. Also, the Bank sold about 51.3 million ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N5.67 under its Union Bank LTTIP. The proceeds of N291 million from the shares allotment to employees bring total combined offer size to N50.02 billion.
Chief executive officer, Union Bank of Nigeria (UBN) Plc, Mr. Emeka Emuwa, said the N50 billion capital raised is critical to the bank’s short to medium term business objectives as the new equity funds will support the bank’s strategy to accelerate business growth and position it as a leading commercial bank in Nigeria.
“With the commencement of the rights issue subscription, we have now officially entered a new phase of our transformation where we will be focused on accelerating business growth to deliver on our objective of becoming one of Nigeria’s leading financial institutions,” Emuwa said.
The Bank said, the net proceeds of the rights issue will be used to enhance the bank’s regulatory capital requirement, increase working capital and grow in strategic areas that correspond to emerging opportunities in Nigeria, enhance technological platforms through strategic investments in technology and digitalization and optimise customer experience with investments in customer touch points.”
Key extracts of the nine-month report of Union Bank for the period ended September 30, 2017 had shown that gross earnings rose by 22 per cent to N109.5 billion in Q3 as against N94.8 billion recorded in Q3 2016. Profit before tax declined marginally by two per cent to N13 billion, customer deposits are up 17 percent from December 2016 to close the period at N767.9 billion.
banker of the day - FREE banker tips from experts