Phillips-Oduoza,-GMD,-UBA
To United Bank for Africa, UBA, investing in the power sector of Nigeria should be the priority of all investment banks. To lead the way, Phillips Oduoza, group managing director, announced that the bank had extended its investment to N113 billion to different investors towards the acquisition of power assets in the country’s power sector.
Besides the power sector, the UBA boss disclosed that the bank also invested in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector where it has taken part in most of the major big-ticket transactions. On agriculture, he added that it has continued to channel resources to the sector, given that it remains the mainstay of most economies in Africa. “UBA has a deliberate policy to continue to fund agriculture. Our lending to the sector is already above the industry average. We are doing about seven per cent of our total portfolio in agriculture,” he said.
Speaking on the bank’s operations across Africa, Oduoza disclosed that UBA currently operates in 19 African countries, “and these are the very strong economies that we have in Africa and all of them are doing very well.” He added that 14 out of the 18 subsidiaries of the group across Africa have started returning profits. However, Oduoza explained that Nigeria still remains the dominant contributor to the UBA Group’s bottom line, making up an average of 75 per cent of the Group’s balance sheet while the rest of Africa contributes 25 per cent.
WhatsApp us