CAL Shareholders On A Warpath
By Daily Graphic - Daily Graphic Business/Finance | Fri, 23 May 2008
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Shareholders of CAL Bank are billed to attend an extra-ordinary general meeting that is expected to generate a lot of argument.
The meeting which has been requested by a shareholder, Mr Afare Apeadu Donkor, seeks to address five important issues that are expected to chart the future development of the bank.
The nature of business as stated by the requisitionist, Mr Afare Donkor are to increase the issued stated capital of the company by up to GH¢100 million through a rights issue, remove Mr Frank Adu Jr as Director of the board, to elect Dr Kobina Quansah, Mr Afare Donkor and Mr Reginald Yoofi Grant as directors of the board, and to authorise the board of directors to appoint from the newly recomposed board of directors, a new managing director, even if in an acting capacity and a new chairman of the board of directors Mr George Victor Okoh is the current chairman of the board.
The meeting, which is scheduled for June 5, 2008 at the Ebenezer Hall of the Osu Presbyterian Church, will be very exciting as the hostilities which started on March 27 are expected to continue with the attempt to remove Mr Adu Jr from the board and as the substantive Chief Executive Officer of the bank.
CAL Bank commenced operations in July 1990 and is considered to be one of the most innovative banks in the country. Having received a universal banking licence in 2004, the bank went public in 2005 where its shares were heavily oversubscribed.
The largest institutional investor in CAL Bank is the Social Security and National Insurance Trust which has 24.49 shares. Two individual share owners in the person of Mr Afare Apeadu Donkor controls 11 per cent stake in the company with Mr Daniel Ofori holding 7.80 per cent stake.
At the last annual general meeting held in March this year, three major shareholders of the bank blocked a resolution by the bank to raise an additional capital of GH¢200 million, on fears that their shares will be diluted.
The three shareholders, SSNIT, who together with Mr Afare Donkor and Mr Daniel Ofori hold about 45.38 per cent equity stake in the bank, also blocked three other resolutions of the bank put forward by the directors at the annual meeting.
A verbal exchange between SSNIT and the directors ensued when the Managing Director of the bank, Mr Frank Adu Jnr., sought to explain the need for the bank to source additional funds in respect of Bank of Ghana (BoG) proposals for banks to re-capitalise.
The new BoG minimum capital requirement will demand that commercial banks to increase their capital from the current GH¢7 million to between GH¢55 million and GH¢60 million, starting from next year.
Mr Adu explained that he had consulted SSNIT and the two other shareholders both on phone and at personal meetings on the need for the bank, an indigenous one, to expand its capital base to underwrite bigger transactions and become more profitable.
Mr Adu's responses did not go down very well with the SSNIT officials and this prompted the lead counsel of SSNIT, Mr Ernest Thompson, to take over the microphone from his colleague and say that SSNIT would not take kindly to remarks by Mr Adu Jnr to the effect that SSNIT was consulted and that SSNIT should rather see reason in the need for the recapitalisation.
Mr Thompson challenged Mr Adu to mention when they contacted SSNIT on the issues and stated that among the other reasons why the directors of the bank were seeking to raise the GH¢200 million capital was to invest some of the money in the building of their new office complex and divest into a properties company, reasons which SSNIT objected to.
Story by Lloyd Evans
Source: Daily Graphic - Daily Graphic
The meeting which has been requested by a shareholder, Mr Afare Apeadu Donkor, seeks to address five important issues that are expected to chart the future development of the bank.
The nature of business as stated by the requisitionist, Mr Afare Donkor are to increase the issued stated capital of the company by up to GH¢100 million through a rights issue, remove Mr Frank Adu Jr as Director of the board, to elect Dr Kobina Quansah, Mr Afare Donkor and Mr Reginald Yoofi Grant as directors of the board, and to authorise the board of directors to appoint from the newly recomposed board of directors, a new managing director, even if in an acting capacity and a new chairman of the board of directors Mr George Victor Okoh is the current chairman of the board.
The meeting, which is scheduled for June 5, 2008 at the Ebenezer Hall of the Osu Presbyterian Church, will be very exciting as the hostilities which started on March 27 are expected to continue with the attempt to remove Mr Adu Jr from the board and as the substantive Chief Executive Officer of the bank.
CAL Bank commenced operations in July 1990 and is considered to be one of the most innovative banks in the country. Having received a universal banking licence in 2004, the bank went public in 2005 where its shares were heavily oversubscribed.
The largest institutional investor in CAL Bank is the Social Security and National Insurance Trust which has 24.49 shares. Two individual share owners in the person of Mr Afare Apeadu Donkor controls 11 per cent stake in the company with Mr Daniel Ofori holding 7.80 per cent stake.
At the last annual general meeting held in March this year, three major shareholders of the bank blocked a resolution by the bank to raise an additional capital of GH¢200 million, on fears that their shares will be diluted.
The three shareholders, SSNIT, who together with Mr Afare Donkor and Mr Daniel Ofori hold about 45.38 per cent equity stake in the bank, also blocked three other resolutions of the bank put forward by the directors at the annual meeting.
A verbal exchange between SSNIT and the directors ensued when the Managing Director of the bank, Mr Frank Adu Jnr., sought to explain the need for the bank to source additional funds in respect of Bank of Ghana (BoG) proposals for banks to re-capitalise.
The new BoG minimum capital requirement will demand that commercial banks to increase their capital from the current GH¢7 million to between GH¢55 million and GH¢60 million, starting from next year.
Mr Adu explained that he had consulted SSNIT and the two other shareholders both on phone and at personal meetings on the need for the bank, an indigenous one, to expand its capital base to underwrite bigger transactions and become more profitable.
Mr Adu's responses did not go down very well with the SSNIT officials and this prompted the lead counsel of SSNIT, Mr Ernest Thompson, to take over the microphone from his colleague and say that SSNIT would not take kindly to remarks by Mr Adu Jnr to the effect that SSNIT was consulted and that SSNIT should rather see reason in the need for the recapitalisation.
Mr Thompson challenged Mr Adu to mention when they contacted SSNIT on the issues and stated that among the other reasons why the directors of the bank were seeking to raise the GH¢200 million capital was to invest some of the money in the building of their new office complex and divest into a properties company, reasons which SSNIT objected to.
Story by Lloyd Evans
Source: Daily Graphic - Daily Graphic
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