Something About Company
About United Bank For Africa Plc (UBA)
United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) is a Nigeria-based company engaged in the banking sector. The Company’s activities are structured into four segments: Banking segment offers a range of retail, commercial and corporate banking services; Asset Management division provides asset management and advisory services to individuals and financial institutions; Investment Banking provides investment and capital market services and share registration services to listed and private companies, Pension Custody division provides custodial services to various pension fund administrators and corporate customers. The Company operates through a network of branches and retail outlets located across Nigeria. The Company is active through its subsidiaries include, among others, UBA Ghana Limited, UBA Cameroun SA, UBA Cote d’Ivoire, UBA Liberia Limited and UBA Uganda Limited.
UBA has subsidiaries in 20 sub-Saharan countries, with representative offices in France, the United Kingdom and the United States. It offers universal banking services to more than 7 million customers across 750 branches. Formed by the merger of the commercially focused UBA and the retail-focused Standard Trust Bank in 2005, the Bank purports to have a clear ambition to be the dominant and leading financial services provider in Africa. Listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1970, UBA claims to be rapidly evolving into a pan-African full-service financial institution. The Group adopted the holding company model in July 2011. As of December 2011, the valuation of UBA Group’s total assets was approximately US$12.3 billion (NGN:1.94 trillion), with shareholders’ equity of about US$1.07 billion (NGN:170 billion)
UBA’s has more than 65 years of providing uninterrupted banking operations dating back to 1948 when the British and French Bank Limited (“BFB”) commenced business in Nigeria. BFB was a subsidiary of Banque Nationale de Crédit (BNCI), Paris, which transformed its London branch into a separate subsidiary called the British and French Bank, with shares held by Banque Nationale de Crédit and two British investment firms, S.G. Warburg and Company and Robert Benson and Company. A year later, BFB opened its offices in Nigeria to break the monopoly of the two existing British owned banks in Nigeria then.
Following Nigeria’s independence from Britain, UBA was incorporated on 23, February 1961 to take over the business of BFB. UBA eventually listed its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), in 1970 and became the first Nigerian bank to subsequently undertake an Initial Public Offering (IPO). UBA became the first sub-Saharan bank to take its banking business to North America when it opened its New York Office (USA) in 1984 to offer banking services to Africans in Diaspora.
Today’s UBA emerged from the merger of then dynamic and fast-growing Standard Trust Bank, incorporated in 1990 and UBA, one of the biggest and oldest banks in Nigeria. The merger was consummated on August 1, 2005, one of the biggest mergers done on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Following the merger, UBA subsequently went ahead to acquire Continental Trust Bank in the same year, further expanding the UBA brand. UBA subsequently acquired Trade Bank in 2006 which was under liquidation by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
UBA had another successful combined public offering and rights issue in 2007 and made further banking acquisitions of three liquidated banks namely: City Express Bank, Metropolitan Bank, and African Express Bank. The bank also acquired Afrinvest UK, rebranding it UBA Capital, UK.
The quest to build a strong domestic and African brand intensified in 2008 when UBA made further acquisitions of two liquidated banks, Gulf Bank and Liberty Bank while at the same time intensifying its African footprint with the establishment of UBA Cameroon, UBA Cote d Ivoire, UBA Uganda, UBA Sierra Leone, and UBA Liberia as well as the acquisition of a 51% interest in Banque Internationale du Burkina Faso, which was the largest bank in the country with 40% market share. Currently, UBA has 18 African subsidiaries contributing about 20% of the Group’s balance sheet with a target of contributing 50%.
