By Bampia James Bundu
Shareholders of Standard Chartered Bank Sierra Leone have told this year’s Annual General Meeting at the National Stadium Hostel in Freetown that they are disappointed over the poor performance of the bank in 2012.
He was specifically addressing the Board when Captain Spencer, a shareholder, explained that they were not impressed with the bank’s performance for last year and that that was already affecting other investors with the bank. He revealed that operational profit declined by 26% while cost increased by 13%.
“At the end of the day our shares will be cut down due to the poor performance of the bank. Deducting shareholders’ shares from 0.48 to 0.28 is a grave concern to all of us”, he complained and urged the management and staff of the bank to focus on consumer banking to raise their customer base.
He called on the bank to also consider expanding its branches to other parts of the country: “Our bank is not expanding. We need to have branches in other parts of the country to make it more attractive to people and to get more customers”.
Another investor, Marcella Jones, said she was concerned as to why the bank was paying huge amounts of money for “group recharge” and that effect not reflected in the overall progress of the institution.
Chairman of the Board, Alex B. Kamara, owned up but said while the net revenue increased marginally to Le68.6 billion, cost actually increased by 13% to Le47.6 billion and operational profit declined by 26% to Le19.3 billion. He said net band debt charge was Le1.5 billion and earning per shares was 0.56.
He however stated that the board had recorded a dividend of Le0.28% per share down from Le0.48 in the previous year after making adjustment for statutory reserve and paid-up capital. He disclosed to shareholders that all operational banks in Sierra Leone must maintain minimum paid up capital of Le30 billion by end December 2014.
Mr. Kamara described the year 2012 as extremely challenging but insisted that the bank was able to perform creditably. He thanked all staff, Board Members and shareholders for their trust, commitment, and dedication to the bank.
Chief Executive Officer of the Bank, Albert Richard Saltson, acknowledges the fact that shareholders were raising genuine concerns and promised that they were closely looking into the issues. He
assured the shareholders that plans were on the way to open another branch in Makeni in the north.
“The performance of the bank is not that poor based on a banking perspective”, he stated and added that they were able to survive the heavy competition in the country and stand out.
He said the money they were paying for ‘group charges’ was to run their bank office. “In most of the West African countries banks don’t have back offices as the most effective one is the back office in
Ghana we are using”. He described the back office as one important instrument in the running of a bank.
