Thursday, July 28, 2011


GTASSURANCE SALE TO AAH HITS BRICKWALL
That Guaranty Trust Bank, GTBank, Plc has concluded arrangements to sell its insurance subsidiary, Guaranty Trust Assurance Plc to a Mauritius firm, Assur Africa Holding, AAH, comprising three private equity funds and three international developmental finance institutions based in United Kingdom, France, Tunisia and Germany is no news but information flitting alleged that the deal might hit brick wall.
The latest from the deal according to an insider is that the Segun Agbaje’s administration did not inform AAH that only 67.68 per cent stakes in the company, valued at about N11.91 billion will be sold to AAH subject to the approval of the regulatory authorities and its shareholders while they, Gtbank directors will hold on to the remaining under the pretence that there are others Nigerian investors.
This development according to impeccable sources might make the foreign investor call it quit with the acquisitions since there was no statement during the negotiation that GTbank, either as a financial institution or thru its manager will have a stake in the acquisition.
In addition, AAH’s robust post-acquisition plan for GTAssur as well as its support of the GTAssur management team and its strategy to profitably grow the business beyond the bank’s divestment contributed to its selection as the preferred bidder for GTBank’s 67.68% shareholding interest in GTAssur.
The planned sale is in response to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive abolishing universal banking. The abolition of universal banking, forbids banks from undertaking services or activities apart from its core banking activities. It also forbids banks from owning or having interests in subsidiaries or companies not involved in banking.

LEADERSHIP TUSSLE IN GTBANK
SEGUN AGBAJE SET TO SACK EX MD’S BOYS

The leadership tussle ravaging one of Nigeria biggest financial institutions, GTbank has taken another dimension with the plans of the acting MD, Segun Agabje to sack the loyalist of the late MD, Tayo Aderinokun.
Information made available to Newsstar by the bank insider divulged that though Segun Agaje was approved by CBN to act as the managing director until the next Annual General Meeting where the shareholders will unanimously select the right person for the job, there is an indication that some will not want Segun for the plum job and so, he is engaging on a prearranged restructuring exercise which has led to the elevation of over 20 young executives, most his loyalist within the Bank’s ranks to key management positions overseeing various areas of the Bank’s operations while some now have no choice than to throw in the towel and walk out of the bank.
In his bid to secure the seat, information revealed that Segun his presently doing reshuffling of top management staffs who could possible pose threat to his chances of being the managing director. It was also gathered that there is division among the board of directors as some did not want Segun Agbaje to assume the post of an MD but they prefer Mr Ade Adebiyi who happens to be the managing director of the United Kingdom subsidiaries of GTbank.
The Board of Guaranty Trust Bank plc which comprises of Fourteen (14) members, including the Chairman, Managing Director, Deputy Managing Director, Four (4) Executive Directors and Seven (7) Non-Executive Directors his now divided as more than half of the board are against Segun Agbaje’s ambition to become Tayo Aderinokun;s successor.
Among those who never want Segun as the MD includes most of the non-executive directors who complain about his attitude during the days of Tayo and now, most especially now that he hardly consult them to take decision on issues that affects the board looking at the fact that he is Fola Adeola’s loyalist that most of them respects.
Source revealed that Segun Agbaje only fear and stumbling block of being the MD is Ade Adebiyi looking at the fact that they both have the same years of service in the bank and also privilege to the same information of the bank. Record has it that whenever new branch was opened, Ade Adebiyi is always the choice of Tayo to go and start operations before leaving it for others to follow, an example of these was Gambia, Ghana and the UK branch.
Impeccable source added that when the UK branch was opened, Segun Agbaje thought he will be the one to oversee activities before handling to subordinates but Tayo choose his loyalist, Ade Adebiyi who was the third in command in Nigeria.
Ade, who was at the sick bed of his boss always in UK before his death, was transferred immediately Segun Agbaje assumed the acting MD and he was posted to Sierra Leone while Ayoku Liadi, a loyalist of Segun agbaje the former MD in Sierra Leone was posted to act in UK until the AGM.
Our source revealed that when summon by the board on his action, Segun walked out on the board of director in a closed meeting when it generated to an argument on why he has to transferred Ade Adebiyi from UK where the bank has one of its highest turn over to tackle the financial challenges’ in most Africa countries
Segun Agbaje who joined GTB as a pioneer staff in 1990 and worked in several units, rising to the position of Assistant General Manager in 1998, a position he maintained till January 2002 when he was appointed Executive Director, according to our sources his set to reshuffle the management team most especially those who are Tayo Aderinokun loyalist and post whoever will stand against his ambition to countries we there votes will not count when the AGM will be taking place.
It was also gathered that some of the board are presently instructing some shareholders not to vote for Segun Agbaje as the next managing director if they still want to see their money grow in the bank. And the shareholders EXCO, penultimate week gathered to debate on who their candidate will be looking at the track records of the four contest for the post. The managing director post contestants are Segun Agbaje (now acting MD), Ade Adebiyi (UK MD), Titi Osuntoki (Executive Director, board member) and Jide Ogundare (Executive Director, board member).
Registered on January 17, 1990 by Central Bank of Nigeria, GTB Plc was incorporated in July 1990, as a private limited liability company wholly owned by Nigerian individuals and institutions. The approval as Commercial Bank followed in August 1990 and operations were started in February 1991 since its been rendering cutting edge services to its teeming customers across the globe.
FCBREDLINE: TOO COMPLICATED TO MANAGE?
“If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow people.” is achinese proverb that is not applicable in FCBRedline with the incessant changing of managing director like wet diapers.
FCBRedline, the Public relations part of CentreSpreadFCB has again witness what pundits call another untimely withdrawal of its managing director, Mrs Bola Osotule,
The public relations outfit in a span of four years had witness the usage of three managing director who all times quit their service with the PR firm without good notice.
It all started with the able hand of Akonte Ekine who came in to setup the public relations outfit to rival the existing. FCBRedline became a torn in the flesh to other PR agencies looking at the capability and the creativity in its managing director.
The prayer of the competitors in the public relations outfit was answered either by God or the devil when the resignation of Akonte Ekine was announced with barely two years of his stay in the firm.
The uncelebrated resignation of Ekine, who brought several mega deals with mouth watering account was quickly replaced by the ex oceanic bank communication manager, Esan Sunday, a communications expert with multi-disciplinary background that spans through marketing management, journalism, and public relations

Esan took over from Mr Shola Adegborioye, who was in the acting capacity after the resignation of Mr. Akonte Ekine. Esan tenure as the managing director of FCBRedline started with the acquisition of the deal from the federal government to design the Nigeria @50 logo which was well celebrated even by the firm CEO, kola Ayanwale,
In the euphoria of the moment something led to the other and the news of Esan Sunday’s resignation became unbelievable to all who sees Esan as the best man for the job looking at his track record of managing both a bank and its GMD whose excesses most time cannot be seen in the media until the banking reformation that led to the EFCC intervention which unravel so many issues in financial institutions.
It’s become imperative to appoint another managing director to oversee activities in the PR firm and that brought about the appointment of the stone that has been abandoned that now become the pillar support, Mrs Bola Osotule.
The woman of honour who was brought from centrespread to FCBredline to act for years before being appointed the managing director assumed the office immediately Esan Sunday left. A low profile woman who recently celebrated her 40th birthday at an orphanage in lagos, threw in the towel few days ago when its not conducive enough to wear the crown.
With this sequence, many question crosses people mind, does it mean that it’s impossible to please the CEO of the outfit, Mr. Kola Ayanwale? Or is it that the past MD’s are blank upstairs to manage such outfit? What is it that is going on at the agency that MD:s resign at a point one think they are settling them to do more?
Time will definitely give answers to these questions as a new MD or acting might be announced by the management soon.
The reason behind this cannot be ascertain but one get to wonder why the Kola Ayanwale will led management always witness what the outsiders see as shock
WE MAXIMIZES BRANDS PRESENCE IN ALL WAYS
-PAUL INYANG
“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.” is a Chinese proverb that can best describe the brain behind Megaplux who claimed to be destined and inspired to be in the printing proffesion.
Paul inyang, hails from Akwa Ibom state and studied banking and finance from university of Ilorin, Kwara State before divine inspirations led him into printing which eventually berth Megaplux, an outfit that is rendering cutting edge services in terms of brands presence management, large format printing among other worthwhile services in Nigeria and across the world.


What are the services render by megaplux?
The full name is Megaplux Global Access, so we are global people operating in all part of the world. Megaplux is a visual branding consulting company with the mission to ensure strategic value is added to our client’s brands and business reputation. We have done well in terms of large format printing, brand presence management, exhibitions of all sorts, venue and vehicle branding, special effects at events, points of sales, fabrications among others.
Here at megaplux, our passion drives our culture, our culture drives our values and our values drive our action. We possesses the ‘can do’ spirit and we never give up until it’s great. For any brand, we would not rest until we see it the way the owner envisioned it in due time of course. Hence our slogan ‘relax its done’ with us you can go to bed rest assured that your brand is flying high the morning after.
We strive to exceed the expectations of our clients in relations to time, quality and cost, ensuring they have greater value for their money. Our aim is to optimise brand’s functionality in the market place. The truth is, our vision to stay ahead of competitors and create a company that attracts, recruit and retain smart and talented employees with the mission to be inspired to innovate and deliver quality products and services that provide strategic value to our clients brands products and business reputation has really stand us out, placing us at the right vantage for all customers to notice promptly.
Megaplux was a divine inspiration that was conceived four years ago and we started from scratch and now it has activated multinational brands and still renders cutting edge services to our teeming clients.

Of what advantage are your services to a brand?
All your strategies and your great ideas without a visual of it cannot be really interpreted. The visual is more powerful than vocals. People buy what they see most times. We give visual interpretations to great idea conceived by our clients making them the choice of their target audiences.
Our corporate values which are Honesty and integrity, building beneficial and lasting relationship, encouraging imaginative, creative and innovative expressions, fanatical attention to consistency and details, professionalism, hard work and continuous self improvement. Our success is not all about how many our client we’ve worked with but quality works we have done for our clients that will make them come back to us always,
Few years ago, in this industry we are just about five and you know what that means. Clients come form every part of the country to Lagos to do stuff with us. But now in Oregun alone we have close to twenty doing the same thing. Am not saying it’s not good, it helping in terms of creativity because you won’t want to do what your contemporaries are doing and that means you just have to think well to come out with something distinctive.
We’ve worked with the likes of GSK, Insight communications, Nokia Etisalat, FCMB, SO & U Saatchi &Saatchi OandO marketing Prima Garnet LTC JWT, 141 worldwide among others. If what we are doing is not great for any brands this big name in this industry will not have employ our services.

What are the challenges peculiar to your industry?
Foremost, electricity is a major. You can’t survive in this industry without electricity. We run on 24hour generator as means of power supply to meet the deadline of our clients. If you still want to be in business in this country you must not rely on government provision of electricity. we use to say its epileptic but now its dead. Maybe this new dispensation will do anything about it, let’s wait and see.
Another one of its kind is the duties on our materials and many others that we are contending with.
Let me quickly talk about professionalism. Professionalism rather than increasing, I would say, is decreasing. I wouldn’t say it’s even stagnant. It is decreasing by the day and it is not limited to just this industry. Like every other phase of Nigeria, even in medicine, engineering. It is a function of our educational sector. Lecturers are on strike for ages, schools are closed down, some students don’t even know their calendar, and the results coming out of WAEC are not encouraging. You have more private schools now; government has left their responsibilities to private individuals. At the end of the day the overall effect is that it is affecting all the professions. My industry is not exempted, in fact it is really bad for us because some has refuse to attend basic schools. For me the people we have spoken with over and over again in trying to employ staff for the company has really not played up satisfactory and it makes me think we are an endangered species. And that is why for us we said, to be able to improve we have to associate with able bodies and this is why we went to practitioners to come together and form a body in this aspect of advertising with the mindset that it will give us a little bit of benchmark. In as much as we want to play at the international level, even at the local level, we want to be able to benchmark our self by knowing what our contemporaries are doing.
Barrier to entry is almost zero, and because this is so, there is a primary challenge in that area.
It is not only in brand presence management that you see this problem; there are other professions that by virtue of your ability and capability you can still go in there. But then there must be standards and these standards are what the regulators should try and drive.

So, what’s new about megaplux?
Megaplux, a visual brand consulting firm, recently opened its print division and expanding its fabrication operations. this company has acquired machines that can achieve the unique requirements of its clients and the move to expand its part of the our goal of ensuring speedy and dependable service to clients.
Amongst our new acquisition is a large format machine with ability to produce exceptional print quality, digital banners, and other digital and branding materials.
We run rentals on equipments.
All our clients need do is give us their designs and state their requirements and the rest becomes a carefully structured message imbibed into the heart and mind of their target audience with our state of the heart machines.

Where do you want to see your company in few years to come?
As a world class company with affiliation and branches all over the world with improve services to multinational clients,

What do you do at your leisure?
Any exercise that will make me feel good is what I engage in. I like to read a lot because it helps to stimulate me mentally. I do a lot of walking; taking a walk instead of taking taxis. I am very religious, very happy and very close to my God and that has given me some spiritual satisfaction. I try as much as possible to be nice to people because I truly believe in the doctrine that you should do unto all people what you want them to do to you. I spend time with my family always. I work a lot too,
FINANCIAL CRISIS HIT FOTOTEK STUDIO
Reliable information at our disposal as revealed that financial crisis has hit one of the prestigious photo studios in Lagos, Fototek.
Fototek, which has its former headquarter at Opebi,Ikeja in Lagos located at Adebola House and owned by Multi-millionaire Alhaji Suleiman Adebola Adegunwa was shut down following mismanagement that resulted in not been able to pay staff salaries, maintain the state of the art equipments and some daily running cost of the outfit.
Impeccable source divulged that the equipment in the Fototek were being move one after the other until when the heavy machines was about to be sold to another person in the industry was when the owner employed the service of hefty men to help move the equipments.
While they movement was going on a visit was made to the venue by brand villa and the only person that agreed to talk under agreement not to mention his name said they are moving only for strategic business reasoning
But another staff who could not stomach the crisis divulged that a lot of financial crisis are presently ravaging the outfit which as eventually kicked them out of business.
Fototek place used to house one of the best photo studios-(Es-say studios)- in any part of the country, the equipments at the studio alone would set up, many first class stand alone studios and not only that, the Es-say Lab is said to have been unrivalled in the country at the height of its reign, in terms of equipments & personnel.
The owner of the outfit Chief Adegunwa, a director at Sterling Bank and also a director of many other blue chip companies operates other investment like a food processing company that packages sausage rolls that is doing well in the and market and making unprecedented profits,


ECOBANK REWARDS WORKERS FOR OPENING SALARY ACCOUNTS
Ecobank has unveiled a three months Salary Account Promo that enable workers win from a multiple of instant gifts as they open their salary account with the bank. It also qualifies them to be part of a random selection that will see winners taking home the dream prize of brand new automobiles.
Announcing the commencement of the promotion in Lagos, Country Head Domestic Products, Mrs. Funmi Ajayi said the promo is borne out of the need to provide succour for the average Nigerian worker. According to her Ecobank identifies with the working class and has created products that will meet their needs, especially in the face of the challenging economic circumstances.
Enumerating the benefits from the promotion, Mrs. Ajayi said that workers who embrace the promo by opening their salary accounts with the bank will automatically be eligible and can access the bank’s assets loan, which include salary loans, car loans and mortgage loans. Also opening a salary account with Ecobank means free internet banking services and Ecobank Regional Card for the worker.
According to her, Ecobank has always been in the forefront of unique product development, and will continue to contribute significantly to the growth of the Nigerian economy. For her “Ecobank, with the largest Pan African banking network in Africa is the best platform to provide economic empowerment to peoples across Africa, hence the determination to build scale in Nigeria, as the bank now operates from over 243 branches scattered across the six geo-political zones of the country.
She emphasized that the bank will continue to expand its product portfolio which currently includes current accounts, savings accounts, cards, regional remittances, consumer finance, loans and advances, investment banking and asset management, regional and international trade.


AGENCIES JOSTLE FOR ACCESS BANK AND INTERCONTINENTAL BANK MERGER ACCOUNT
The planned merger of both Access bank and intercontinental bank has created a competing floor for agencies to jostle for the management of all its account ranging from brand consulting, advertising and media buying, public relations to corporate management among others.
Access bank and intercontinental bank who penultimate week signed a merger agreement to recapitalize intercontinental bank ahead of the September 30th central bank’s deadline will be creating a new brand name with a logo, corporate image in terms of colour, brand equity among others.
The likes of TPT, Adstrat, CMC connect, MediaCom, Absolute PR, Marketing communications company(MPC), among others are jostling for the juicy account following legal binding agreement entered into by both banks which is subject to shareholders regulatory and judiciary approval.