The Managing Director Unity Bank Plc, Tomi Somefun, has said that the bank’s discussion with prospective investors has reached advanced stage.
Somefun who disclosed this in Lagos during interactive session with financial journalists said that the discussions are closer to signing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
Although the Managing Director failed to mention the name of the financial institutions the bank planned to partner with but she said that Unity Bank want to do business with Institutions that would add value to the bank.
Speakng further she said one of the parties Unity Bank want to partner is second strongest infrastructure institution in Asia.
She said Unity Bank which is a product of merger of nine banks in 2006 had a lot of struggle with different issues, management issues but the most pressing one was the legacy non performing loan.
She explained that the bank at that time of merger had an opportunity to sell all the legacy loan to assets management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) but they sold less than N10 billion to them.
She said as at last year, Unity Bank had the highest non performing loans in the nation financial industry, adding that since 2006 the bank started operation as one entity it has spent much of its time recovering loan from debtors.
She said the time consuming in recovering loan prompted the bank action to sell off the remaining bad loan and clean up its books to enable the bank concentrate in strategies that would help grow the institution. She said the decision to write off all the bad loan impacted negatively on the bank’s 2017 financial year result.
She stated that despite huge capital erosion experienced in the past, the bank in 2018 up till October operated at profit.
The management of the bank had earlier said that delay in filling the financial statements was occasioned by certain corporate actions including discussions with the prospective investors undertaken by the bank which necessitated extensive reviews by the apex regulator.
The management said that the bank consulted extensively with the Nigerian Stock Exchange and Central Bank of Nigeria and obtained extensive of up to October 31, 2018 to file account.
Also speaking, Executive Director, Corporate Planning and Compliance, Usman Abdulqadir said that the bank sold N436 billion bad loan to Frontier asset, a private company that has shareholders.
He said that the huge loan was ratified and approved by the apex bank before it was sold to the company.
He explained that the decision to move the bank head quarter in Abuja had its its own impact on the growth of the bank as other commercial banks operating in the country had their head offices in Lagos
