Skye Bank raises $150m capital

Skye Bank Plc has raised a total of $150 million tier II capital as part of measures to beef up its equity and working capital. The additional capital raising is expected to be finalised by the end of July this year.

Timothy Oguntayo, group managing director/chief executive officer designate of the bank, disclosed this on Thursday in Lagos at the bank’s pre-annual general meeting press briefing.

Oguntayo said the capital raising exercise was in tandem with the approval of the shareholders at the last annual general meeting, adding that the new capital would strengthen the bank as a solid institution.

The Skye Bank boss said the bank would use its enhanced strength to further intervene in funding critical sectors of the economy to bring about national development.

Specifically, he said the bank has been supporting the oil and gas industry, real estate development, agriculture, educational institutions, among others.

Oguntayo puts the bank’s total funding of agriculture at over N15 billion traversing cocoa processing, animal production, among others.

He, however, called for the revamping of the Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation to be able to guarantee agric loans in a manner that will encourage banks to fund the sector more.

On strategies to lower the bank’s cost of funds, he said the bank has designed new retail banking strategies that would aid the mobilisation of cheap deposit, pointing out that the financial inclusion scheme gives opportunity to banks to do this.
It would be recalled that Skye Bank recorded a profit before tax of N17.136 billion for the financial year ended December 31, 2013, representing an increase of 3.79 percent over the N16.510 billion recorded during the corresponding period in 2012.
According to the International Financial Reporting System’s (IFRS) compliant result submitted to the Nigeria Stock Exchange recently, the bank’s profit after tax rose significantly to N16.023 billion compared to N12.644 billion posted in the previous year, showing an improvement of 26.7 percent.

HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE