Daniel Asiedu, adb MD
Shareholders of Agricultural Development Bank (adb) have voted to limit the power of the government to appoint all directors of the board.
Before the decision was taken at an emergency Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Friday, the government, which currently controls 32.3 percent shares in adb, had the power to elect all members of the board.
The shareholders declared that the government should be restricted to the selection of only three board members to allow all those holding more than 10 percent of the shares to also select some of the board members at the AGM called by Belstar Capital Limited, which controls 34 percent of the shares.
The shareholders amended Section 74 of the bank’s regulation to reflect the current situation.
The changes became necessary after the floatation bank’s shares on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).
Currently, the fate of Daniel Aseidu, who is the bank’s Managing Director, is hanging, because a new board is going to be constituted to run the affairs of the bank.
Deputy Managing Director of Belstar Capital Limited, Patrick Kingsley-Nyinah said his outfit called for the emergency AGM because “our interest is clearly misunderstood in this whole business.”
He said “the purpose of calling this Extraordinary General Meeting was to change the regulations of the company to reflect the new shareholders. You will recall that the government of Ghana and Bank of Ghana were the sole shareholders of adb shareholding until the Initial Public Offer (IPO), which was effected in December 2016.”
“Because the offer was successful, we had about 430 plus change stakeholders coming into the company, and the company was subsequently listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange.
Owing to the change in the composition of the shareholders, it was appropriate for the investors to have a say in the affairs of the bank through their representatives at the board level.
“So if you have 450 people, out of the 325 million cedis that was raised by adb during the IPO , Belstar and its associated companies contributed GH¢312 million, so you will not put your GH¢312 million and not want to at least have a say in the direction of the company,” he explained.
“The regulations had to be changed. It wasn’t going to be possible for the other shareholders to appoint the directors, because the old regulation had it that there were only two shareholders, Bank of Ghana and government and that has changed,” he said.
Apart from Belstar Capital (34 percent) and the government (32.3 percent), other shareholders include Starmount Development Company Limited (11 percent), Bank of Ghana (9.5 percent), EDC Capital (6 percent), adb Employees (5 percent), with the rest of the shares going to the public.
BY William Yaw Owusu