- Shareholders Laud Access Bank’s Five-year Strategy, Dividend Culture
The shareholders of Access Bank Plc have commended the lender’s five-year strategic objective, saying the plan will continue to enhance the bank’s operations and ensure a more impressive dividend pay-out.
The views of the shareholders were expressed at the bank’s Annual General Meeting held in Lagos on Wednesday.
In addition, the bank’s consistent dividend policy was lauded by the shareholders, who also expressed gratitude to the board on surpassing the N4tn mark on the bank’s balance sheet.
During the 2017 financial year, the board declared and paid an interim dividend of 25 kobo per share, for the half-year ended June 30, 2017. The board also declared a final dividend payment of 40 kobo per share, bringing total dividend for the year ended December 31, 2017 to 65 kobo per share.
Leaders of the shareholders’ groups who spoke at the 29th AGM of the bank, said the N4tn balance sheet mark achieved by the bank had solidified its position as a major player in the financial sector. The shareholders that contributed at the meeting included: Adebayo Adeleke of the Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria; Bisi Bakare, President of the Pragmatic Shareholders Association of Nigeria; and Muktar Muktar, President, Trusted Shareholders’ Association of Nigeria.
The bank posted gross earnings growth of 20 per cent, from N381.1bn in 2016 to N459.1bn in 2017.Shareholders’ funds and customer deposits climbed by 13.4 per cent and 7.5 per cent from N454.5bn in 2016 to N515.4bn 2017 and N2.1bn in 2016 to N2.2bn in 2017, respectively.
Addressing shareholders at the meeting, the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, said, “We are having increase on all indices: Earnings per share, cost of risk and capital adequacy Ratio which are the major ratios financial institutions are measured by. Looking at the top-line of major banks, we are doing well. The new phase of our five-year corporate strategic plan will extensively cover what we could not achieve in the previous phase.
“We shall continue to invest in staff training in order to ensure our staff remain one of the best among their colleagues in the industry. As a customer- friendly institution we have set-up an interactive voice response centre and ombudsman complaints call center to tackle issues from customers.”
