Wema Bank obtains shareholders’ consent for capital restructure, N40bn rights issue

Nigeria’s leading digitally-driven financial institution, Wema Bank, on Friday, December 31, 2021, received the approval of its shareholders at a court-ordered meeting to restructure its
capital ahead of a capital raise through a rights issuance early in the year 2022.

The Bank obtained the approval at an extraordinary general meeting where its shareholders unanimously voted for the scheme of arrangement to reconstruct its shares. The Bank has shares in issue of over 38 billion units, and the shareholders consented to a reconstruction of one share for every three held.

Commenting on the meeting, the MD/CEO, Ademola Adebise said: “We are pleased with the support given and confidence expressed by our shareholders. We have come a long way in the last decade – from negative capital, we now have over N60billion in shareholder’s funds and a balance sheet size above N1trillion.
“With this approval of shareholders, we will begin the Rights issuance to raise our capital base to over N100billion. This gives us room to increase our financial intermediation and further scale up our business.” Adebise said in a statement issued by the bank.

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Adebise further commented on some recent issues, including reports alleging a face-off between the Management of Wema Bank Plc and one of its customers. In his words, the MD/CEO said, “The Bank’s attention had been drawn to recent media mentions of certain customer obligations and reassures our shareholders and customers that the Bank has and will continue to operate with the highest level of due process, corporate governance policies, and procedures.” ALAT, the Bank’s flagship digital banking solution, continues to deliver results and recently won the “Best Digital Bank of the Year Award” 2021. Wema Bank expects to close the year strongly with improved returns to shareholders.