From left: Group Managing Director, Royal Exchange Plc, Olawale Banmore; Director, Hewett Benson; Company Secretary, Sheila Ezeuko; Director, Rufai Mohammed and Director Adeyinka Ojora at the event.
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Chuks Udo Okonta
The Chairman of Royal Exchange, Kenny Odogwu, has expressed optimism that the the company will scale through the recapitalisation hurdles and emerged stronger post recapitisation.
He said this today at the firm’s 51st virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Lagos. The Chairman, who was represented by a Director of the company, Rufai Mohammed, noted that the general business arm of the group is almost through with sourcing capital, adding that he is optimistic that the process would be concluded by the end of third quarter(Q3) 2020 ahead of the recapitalisation deadline.
He posited that other subsidiaries such as the Microfinance bank, HMO and finance company are not being neglected in the capital injection exercise, as the board is determined to keep them firm amongst financial market players.
Whilst presenting the company’s 2019 financial performance to shareholders, the Chairman said the company paid a total of N3.18billion as claims when compared N3.16 billion paid in 2018, representing an increase of one per cent.
He added that group cost containment was effective throughout the year under review as a total operating expenses dropped from N4.03billion in 2018 to N2.4billion, indicating a 42 per cent drop and N2billion savings. It also translated to 38 per cent and N1.5billion savings when compared to the corresponding year 2019 budgeted amount.
On the company’s plans to improve the business, he said “the new world class software we acquired earlier in 2019 and deployed to our insurance subsidiaries has started yielding positive fruits by making our workforce seamless.
“To remain competitive as fledgling insurance superpower, and in line with our strategic implementation of our digitalization plan, the newly upgraded website has many features including call-to-action/sale capabilities which is customer focus. Clients can now log in and purchase insurance cover online and call-centers too is now up and rerunning with 24-hours facilities to attend to enquirers,” he stated.
From left: National Coordinator, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Boniface Okezie and Coordinator Emeritus, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria Sir. Sunny Nwosu at the event.
Shareholders who attended the meeting to represent their various groups were; Coordinator Emeritus, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN) Sir. Sunny Nwosu and Chairman, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Boniface Okezie. They applauded the board and management for such a wonderful result in 2019 and its effort to recapitalised the general and life business before the deadline.
They urged the board of the company to continue to explore business opportunities that would yield more money to the company, whilst applauding the board for the fora into agric insurance.
