WAICA Reinsurance Corporation Plc (WAICA Re) says it has expanded its reach beyond Africa, providing reinsurance services up to Asia and Middle East.
Abiola Ekundayo, managing director/CEO of the Company said reinsurance business is an international business and does not limit it to only Africa, stating that it is building capacity to enable it accommodate more risks both within and outside Africa.
According to Ekundayo who spoke at the sideline of the recent African Insurance Organisation Conference in Accra Ghana said its continuing its capital raise until paidup capital reached 100 million dollars.
According to him the Company currently has a paid up capital of about 65 million dollars, having progressed steadily from 12.5 million dollars to 30 million dollars and presently 65 million dollars.
He said the company share price currently is over 1.8 to a dollar, adding that by the time the additional share capital is raised the value will be significant.
On performance of the business, he said they have gone beyond Africa progressively, while noting that the company has been able to approach the business of reinsurance globally.
He added that the company has done very well in English West Africa speaking countries, and needed to go beyond Africa for new businesses.
On its subsidiary in Kenya, he said the general business office has gotten approval in principle and will soon get its license from the regulator.
Kofi Duffor, chairman WAICA Re said in the year 2016, the company successfully achieved its strategic objective of growing its business beyond the Anglophone West Africa region, pointing out that it attained a notable growth level of 250 percent in Francophone Africa region in 2016 while maintaining 80 percent growth in other overseas countries within the period.
The company’s chairman, who disclosed this said the capitalisation process was started by the company in 2016, through a Rights Issue, which involved the issue of 14,472,816 ordinary shares at $1.52 per share at a ratio of 0.5669 new share for every one existing share held.
He said that the offer was to raise additional share capital of $21,998,680 to support the Corporation’s strategic drive and business expansion.
“At the end of the offer, 13,031,190 shares were subscribed valued at $19,807,408.80, representing a success rate of 90 per cent”, said Duffor.
WAICA Reinsurance Corporation Plc is a public limited liability company incorporated under the laws of Sierra Leone (Companies Act 2009) on 7th March 2011.
In the years following the creation of West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) in 1973, the founding fathers had the desire to establish a reinsurance organisation to help mitigate the effects of the lack of reinsurance capacity within the West African insurance industry.
To fulfill this ambition, the founding fathers considered it prudent to start off by creating a reinsurance pool which hopefully will someday metamorphose into a fully fledged reinsurance corporation. Today, the WAICA Reinsurance Pool has turned into WAICA Reinsurance Corporation Plc, a dream come true.
There is no gain in saying that there is lack of reinsurance capacity in the West African sub region, which situation is compelling insurance companies to seek reinsurance protection in other parts of the world where the treaties offered are not exactly competitive and/ or affordable and the service sometimes almost non-existent.
The current WAICA Executive Council in order to give impetus to the development and realization of the idea of establishing a fully fledged reinsurance institution then embarked on revitalizing and implementing the idea of establishing the WAICA Reinsurance Corporation (WAICA Re).
To that end, the Executive Committee reconfirmed and endorsed the age old decision to locate the headquarters of WAICA Reinsurance Corporation (WAICA Re) in Freetown, Sierra Leone and to have major operating centres in Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria.
Apart from the provision of reinsurance capacity, the establishment of WAICA Re is a good example of regional socio-economic integration.
Modestus Anaesoronye
