ZBFH seek investors for banking arm

ZBFH seek investors for banking arm
Published: 03 July 2014
ZB Financial Holdings says it is looking for looking for "third party" investors for its banking arm in a bid to meet the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's comprehensive re-capitalisation requirements.

All commercial banks are supposed to be capitalised to a minimum of $100 million by 2020, with the re-capitalisation plan submission to the central bank having lapsed yesterday. Last week, ZBFH group chief executive Ron Mutandagayi said they had since submitted their re-capitalisation plans and it would involve a combination of trading up to the required levels and engaging investors.

"As far as the requirements for re-capitalisation at they stand we do meet the minimum capital adequacy levels but for 31 December 2020 we are working on a program that is a combination of trading up to those levels as well as looking for third party investors," said Mutandagayi.

Although admitting that liquidity challenges in the economy have been a significant challenge during the first half of the year 2014, Mutandagayi said the group will continue lending cautiously various sectors in an effort to improve the economy.

"We continue to lend to sectors that are doing well and we obviously have some sectors that are not doing so well that will require to be managed with a bit of care. We are an entirely Zimbabwean bank and we need to ensure that the Zimbabwean economy is funded adequately for purposes of development of the country," he said.

Giving a trading update for the first half, chairman Bothwell Nyajeka said the company's performnce so far has been below target, but they expect improved performance in the second half.

"The Group's balance sheet has increased marginally by 2 percent as at 31 May 2014 from the levels achieved as at 31 December 2013.

Trading revenue increased by 3 percent.

However, a depressed outturn on the equity portfolio has had a significant negative impact on overall outturn to date with the result that the Group is operating at slightly below break-even level after accounting for the unrealised loss on investments. Costs have been managed at 2 percent below the 2013 levels," said Nyajeka.
- BH24
Tags: ZB, Bank, Investors,

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