UTC NIGERIA PLC: Appointment of New Directors – UTC Nigeria Plc notified The Nigerian Stock Exchange of the appointment of the following Directors into the Board of the Company:
Mr Olaoluwa Akinkugbe (Chairman)
Ms Imoni Akpofure
Mr Offong Ambah
Ms Olubunmi Fayokun
Ms Olatoyosi Kolawole
Mr Adedotun Sulaiman
The company has also also notified The Exchange of the resignation of the following directors from the Board of the company:
Apostle Hayford Alile
Mr. Fola Adeola
Engr. Kadri Adebayo Adeola
Mr. Deji Alli
Mr. Bode Adedeji
Mr. Victor GboladeOsibodu
Whilst this seems like a fantastic move on paper, it is not immediately clear how this new board restructuring will work for the company. The directors named above have very impressive resumes and there is risk of a clash of egos. It is also not clear of this assemblage of nw directors signifies change of ownership or injection of new capital to turnaround the fortunes of the company. This move may also be in response to the threat by the NSE that it will delist the company for non compliance with NSE guidelines. UTC share price has remained at 50kobo for months and rose to 65kobo January last year, its one year high.
Resume of the New Directors below;
Mr. Olaoluwa Akinkugbe is the Chairman/CEO of L.A. Consultancies Limited. With over three decades experience, Olaoluwa commenced his career in 1971 at Nestle Nigeria, before joining Nigerian Bottling Company in 1973, and ultimately Coca-Cola International as External Affairs Director for Nigeria, but with portfolio spanning the English West Africa in the areas covering Government Affairs, Corporate Social Responsibility, Media and Communications. Upon retirement in March 2006, he was appointed on the Board of Nigerian Bottling Company as a Non-Executive Director. A 1971 Social Science (Sociology, Economics, French) graduate of the University of Ibadan, Laolu had his postgraduate studies in Management at the Cranfield University, Bedford, England in 1976. He is also a 1996 graduate of the Advanced Management Program; AMP of Lagos Business School.
He is on the Boards of many blue chip companies and associations, including Mouka Nigeria Limited and Lagos Business School Alumni Association. He is currently the National President of the Nigerian American Chamber of Commerce.
Ms Imoni Akpofure holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Imperial College, London, Master of Science degree in Environmental Engineering from Newcastle University, UK, and MBA from INSEAD, France and practiced as a chartered civil engineer in UK before returning to Nigeria. Prior to her return to Nigeria to consult independently, Ms Imoni Akpofure was based in Paris, as Director for Western Europe at the IFC, with responsibility for managing IFC’s relationships with Western European shareholders and donors, business development with, and relationship management of European companies, as well as building partnerships with other stakeholders in Europe. She has served in various capacities in IFC, including Country Manager based in Accra, Ghana, coordinating IFC’s strategy and business in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’ivoire, Ghana, Republic of Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone and Togo; Manager of the Market Development Group in the Environment and Social Development. She also served as Country Manager in IFC’s regional office based in Johannesburg, South Africa and as IFC’s Regional Representative based in Harare, Zimbabwe with specific responsibility for Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Ms Imoni has served as a Trustee on the Board of Newmont Ahafo Development Foundation (NaDEF) in Ghana, and was a Trustee on the African Training and Management Services Foundation (Stichting ATMS), The Netherlands.
Mr Offong Ambah is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Marine Networks Limited, an indigenous oil services company. He was also the Group Chief Executive Officer of Old Mutual West Africa. Prior to Old Mutual, he served as an Executive Director on the board of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, and as Chief Executive of Ecobank Capital. In the latter role, he had responsibility for the Pan African banking group’s Investment Banking, Treasury, Asset Management & Research activity across its 32 Country Africa network, as well as 5 international representative office locations. He was, prior to the creation of Ecobank Capital, the Managing Director of Ecobank Nigeria Plc. Offong, before his return to Ecobank in 2005, had been appointed the Interim Chairman of the Board of Directors of Allstates Trust Bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria, and had previously served as an Executive Director of United Bank for Africa Plc. He spent the early part of his career at the International Merchant Bank and City Trust Merchant Bank in Nigeria.
Ms Olubunmi Fayokun: Olubunmi graduated from the University of Ife, IIe-Ife, Nigeria in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in law and was admitted to the Nigerian Bar in 1985. She is a partner in the corporate and commercial department of Aluko & Oyebode, with extensive experience in energy and natural resources law. She heads the firm’s capital market and M&A practices. She also advices on matters pertaining to project and infrastructure finance, banking, power, aviation, public-private partnerships (PPPs) and privatisation.
Over the years, Olubunmi has advised on a significant number of energy transactions, including; the development of a greenfield Independent Power Production (IPP) project; the prospective acquisition by an international power company of assets of the Nigerian National Integrated Power Project; the development, financing and implementation of the IPP project in Nigeria; KNOC’s acquisition of two deep-sea oil blocks in Nigeria; and the acquisitions, by various international oil
companies, of participating interests in Nigerian Oil blocks. She continues to advise major oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria. Olubunmi advised Access Bank Plc on its US$300 million acquisition of Intercontinental Bank Plc (awarded the ‘2012 M&A Deal of Year’ for Africa by the Banker Magazine). She also advised on Guaranty Trust Bank’s US$400 Eurobond issue; First City Monument Bank’s debut Eurobond Issue; the establishment of Access Bank’s US$1 billion Eurobond programme; and is currently advising on a variety of innovative M&A transactions in various industry sectors.
She is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), International Bar Association (IBA) and the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators. She chairs the capital market committee of the Nigerian Bar Association section on business law, treasurer of the Capital Market Solicitors’ Association and has served on various committees established by the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ms Olatoyosi Kolawole: Toyosi Kolawole is the Managing Director of Avdeo Energy Ltd. She was previously a principal consultant and co-founder of Integrated Business Strategies (IBS). Prior to IBS she was a management consultant in the financial institutions group at A.T Kearney. Toyosi also worked for Guaranty Trust Bank as an independent strategy consultant, serving small to medium companies in the retail and food industries. Her industry expertise includes banking, oil and gas, and education. Toyosi holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge Massachusetts, USA, a postgraduate diploma in business administration from the University of Manchester, UK, and a bachelors’ degree in food science and technology from the Obafemi Awowolo University, Ife, Nigeria. She is a fellow of the third class of the Africa Leadership Initiative – West Africa and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Mr. Adedotun Sulaiman is a renowned management consultant and expert in organizational development, enterprise transformation and business process re-engineering. Dotun is a distinguished alumnus of the University of Lagos; he obtained a First Class Honours Degree in Business Administration in 1975. Dotun also qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1978. He attended the Programme for Management Development (PMD) at the Harvard Business School in 1990.
Sulaiman chairs the boards of several companies, traversing several sectors of the economy with major emphasis on the emerging electronic payments industry and companies in the entrepreneurial stage. He started his professional career as a diplomat, including a stint at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington DC as a consular officer between 1976 and 1978. In late 1978, he joined the Management Information Consulting. He took over from the founding Managing Partner, the celebrated Dick Kramer in 1993 and remained Country Managing Partner for both
Arthur Andersen, the Audit and Tax firm as well as Andersen Consulting until 1999 and became the Country Managing Partner of Accenture with the separation of the consulting business from Arthur Andersen Worldwide Organisation. He remained the Country Managing Director of Accenture, the new name of the newly independent Management and Technology consulting arm until his retirement in March 2005 from his executive leader of Accenture in Nigeria.
He was a founding member of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and was a member of the Summit’s Board since inception in 1993 until December 2006. He was also a member of the Board of Governors of the Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON) until December 2006 and a Trustee of the Corona Schools Trust. He is a recipient of the national honour of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR).