With New Structure, Access Targets to Be among Africa’s Top Five Banks by 2027
Obinna Chima and Eromosele Abiodun
The Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Access Holdings Plc, Mr. Herbert Wigwe yesterday said the banking subsidiary of the financial institution aims to be among the top five banks in Africa by 2027.
Speaking during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, Wigwe stressed that adopting a holding company (HoldCo) structure would bring about more value to the shareholders and position the holdco Access to deliver more to its stakeholders.
Under the new re-organisation, Access Holding Company Plc now serves as the parent company for the group and its subsidiaries are: Access Bank Group; Access Payco Group; Access Lendco; Access Insureco; Access Real Estate, and Others (e.g., ecommerce).
As part of its 20th anniversary which was celebrated this month, Access Bank had decided to start implementing its HoldCo strategy.
“The Access Bank brand would continue to grow to become Africa’s truly most respected bank and by 2027, the target is that it would be one of the top five banks in the continent. There has never been a time that we shared our target with the market and we didn’t meet it,” Wigwe said.
Wigwe pointed out that the strategic objective of the HoldCo included value accretion, agility, scale leverage, best-in-class talent and targeted consolidation.
“Access will transition to the foremost financial services Holdco with a group of portfolio companies with significant complementarities that will drive value to all its stakeholders,” Wigwe said.
He said Access bank will continue to grow across the continent, targeting to become the number five in the continent from number 12.
He recalled that 20 years ago, Access Bank used to be ranked as the 69th bank in Nigeria, adding that through well-laid out plan and strategic vision, the bank was able to rise to become the largest bank in terms of balance sheet and customer base.
“Then (2002), there was hardly any space for us. But between 2007 and 2012, through hard work, we became one of the top 10 banks in the country and the banking sector consolidation under Prof. Charles Soludo changed everything as we went into the market to raise capital.
“Between 2012 and 2017, we told ourselves that we wanted to be one of the top three banks and we started by growing organically. Presently, we are in the last year of our 5-year corporate strategy which ends in 2022 and we shall have another five-year strategy for 2022 to 2027.”
Following the completion of its scheme of arrangement with all approvals gotten for its HoldCo, Wigwe was on Monday announced as the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (GMD/CEO) of Access Holdings Plc. A notification to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited, signed by Company Secretary, Mr. Sunday Ekwochi, had also announced Mr. Bababode Osunkoya as the chairman of Access Holdings, while for the banking subsidiary, Mr. Roosevelt Ogbonna was appointed the Managing Director/CEO. In addition, Mr. Victor Etuokwu is now the Deputy Managing Director (North) and Mrs. Chizoba Okoli, Deputy Managing Director (South) of the bank respectively.
