Kennedy Uzoka, Group Managing Director (GMD) and CEO of pan-African banking group, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc says the bank’s task of extending operations to 25 African countries “in the near to medium-term” from the existing 19 countries is on course.
He reaffirmed this when the bank hosted more than 34 African journalists at the UBA House in Lagos, Nigeria recently. The journalists were in Lagos at the invitation of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) to cover its TEF Entrepreneurship Forum 2016.
The UBA in May, this year held its inaugural Senior Leadership Forum which reflected the strategic importance and growth potential of the Group’s pan-African business.
UBA Group Chairman Mr. Tony O. Elumelu who convened the Forum to review the impressive growth of the bank’s African network over the past 11 years, and provide a platform to reaffirm and embolden its strategic goals.
UBA subsidiaries according to Mr Uzoka operate in 19 African countries and now contribute more than 25 percent to Group operating revenue.
UBA is increasingly recognised as a strong pan-African brand, hailed for democratising banking in its countries of operation while participating in leading financial transactions, he told the visiting journalists,
For instance in Ghana, UBA participated in a US$315million facility to the government of Ghana for road projects on the strength of Road Fund levies, domiciled with UBA Ghana.
Another transaction involves a US$250million Crude pre-payment facility for Democratic Republic of Congo-based Orion Oil, representing the largest reported transaction structured by an African investment bank in 2015 involving fresh capital within the African market.
Others include a €234million oil and gas financing deal with Société Africaine de Raffinage (SAR) of Senegal, and a US$180million loan to Delta Energy Zambia for the procurement and supply of petroleum products to marketing companies in Zambia.
Others are a US$90million University of Dakar hostel construction project financed solely by UBA Senegal, and a US$1.2billion oil financing with NNPC and Chevron, wherein UBA provided funding for Chevron and NNPC to develop 36 new oil wells that will significantly expand Nigeria’s oil production capacity.
Mr Uzoka reiterated that the bank has done a lot, but in many senses it is only beginning to reap the rewards of its years of network and potential. “We are a truly pan-African institution, and after a period of consolidation we know that the continuing expansion of our Africa footprint is a key goal. We must ensure that we have presence in at least 25 countries in the near to medium-term”.
He added: “We are almost 70 years. We are building that enterprise (UBA) so that Africans where ever they are to be proud. UBA wants to connect all the countries in Africa. We have done a lot of work to expand to other African countries where we don’t have operations at the moment”.
On what the bank is doing right to remain strong in the pan-African banking space, Mr Uzoka said: “We design all our programmes around the customer. We have also built our strategies to ensure that generations after us can continue our customer-centric philosophy”.
UBA is going to lead the market through the provision of tailor-made customer-centric products and services for the bank’s customers in any part of the world, the GMD/CEO Uzoka confidently stated.
Touching on the bank’s operations outside Africa, he noted that UBA is the only African bank doing deposit banking in the USA. “We are in the USA, UK, and France to mobilise resources for the development of the African continent”.
UBA reported strong financial results in 2015, in what is largely recognised as a challenging macro environment. Gross earnings were N315bn while operating profits stood at almost N70bn.
The bank’s Africa operations currently contribute approximately 25% of these earnings, but are expected to grow significantly and over time contribute as much as 50% to overall Group profitability.
Instructively, United Bank for Africa (UBA) is one of Africa’s leading financial institutions, with operations in 19 African countries and three global financial centres: London, Paris and New York.
From a single country operation in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, UBA has evolved into a pan-African provider of banking and related financial services to more than 11 million customers through diverse channels globally.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Back from Nigeria, courtesy Tony Elumelu Foundation
