Afribank has announce the sack of about 600 staff members - mostly middle and junior level staff members.


Afribank disengages workers, reassigns directors
By Rotimi Durojaiye, Group Business Editor

Afribank Nigeria Plc has disengaged a substantial number of its workforce, just as it reassigned nine of its directors.

An unconfirmed source put the number of those to be affected at 600.


The bank has consequently provided attractive severance packages for exiting staff to enable them properly settle down for life after employment.


The exercise, according to the bank, is in continuation of its transformation strategy geared towards achieving optimum efficiency.


It said that the board and management of the bank have provided another exit window for its staff to retire from the organisation.


According to a statement made available on Thursday, both middle and lower cadre staff have decided to take advantage of the exit opportunities provided by the bank.


"The exercise, which was conducted by KPMG Professional Services, is expected to right-size the staff structure and provide optimum efficiency for the institutions.


This development is in line with the bank's strategy initiated in September 2006," the statement explained.


It further stated that "there will also be redeployment of senior management effective from Monday, June 1, 2009 in a bid to put "round pegs in round holes."


The bank stressed that the redeployment "will also create a career path structure for top management to ensure that the bank's human capital resources achieve their full potentials."


The directors reassigned are Chinedu Onyia (Executive Director; South); Isa Zailani (Executive Director Strategy, Risk Management & Control);


Isa Jibrin (Executive Director; Institutional Banking); Henry Arogundade (Executive Director; Operations & IT)


Others are Mohammed Abbas Jega (Executive Director, North); Olajuwon Olaleye (General Manager, Head; e-Solutions); Ndubuisi Osakwe (Head, Financial Institutions & Special Projects);


Godfrey Ebetaleye, (Head; Strategy & Group Coordination) and Mrs. Bunmi Odubanjo, (Head, Retail Banking).


Since the new management came in 2006, the bank has consistently grown its fundamentals.


With 38.4 per cent return on its shareholders' funds of N39.52 billon in its 2007/2008 financial year, Afribank had emerged the fastest growing bank in the country to achieve such a phenomenal growth in returns.


To achieve the feat, the Bank made a pre-tax profit of N15.11billion from the capital deployed in 2006/2007 financial year.


Industry average return on shareholders funds during the period in review stood at 18.7 per cent.


Boosted by Afribank's sterling performance, shareholders of the bank had smiled home with a bonus of one for three ordinary shares of the bank held and a cash dividend of 50 kobo per share.


The bank had generated N15.11billion pre-tax profit in 2008, a quantum leap from N9.13billion in the 2007 financial year, which according to the bank "was made possible by the high level of efficiency, good assets mix, sound management and aggressive business initiatives among others."


The institution had recorded gross earnings of N49.19 billion in the 2007/2008 financial year compared with N27.53 billion in the previous year, showing an increase of 78.67 per cent.


This was considered to be a landmark growth in the industry.


Total assets of the bank also grew by 88 per cent to N352.27 billion from N187.07 billion in 2007, while earnings per share witnessed 78 per cent growth from 99kobo in 2007 to 176 kobo in 2008.