Lamin Manjang, Standard Chartered Bank’s Chief Executive Officer for Nigeria and West Africa, has assured shareholders and clients assurance of orderly process.
Speaking at a press conference held yesterday in Banjul, he said “the decision for exiting is based on a strategic decision taken by the group to refocus our resources, our attention to markets where we see growth and scale opportunities. And hence the decision that we will be selling the shareholdings of Standard Chartered Bank of Standard Chartered Bank Gambia to strategic investors who will then own majority share.”
“It’s important to clarify that the bank is not shutting down its door and leaving the country. The operation will continue but it will simply continue with new ownership. But at this point in time, it’s too early one cannot say with certainty who that new owner is, but then the plan is to continue the operations until the ownership is pass on to new shareholders and then the bank will continue to operate as usual.
“But in the meantime, just to assure all stakeholders that this will be a very orderly process. It’s a process that can take anywhere between one year to two years and therefore in the period everything will continue as normal. Staff will continue to be employed by the bank, all their benefits are assured, and nothing will be reduced from that. The clients will also continue to be served as they have been in the past,” he explained.
“So, in The Gambian context this has nothing to do with the economy. Is not a reflection of the macro economy policy of the country. The decision is purely on the basis of strategic realignment, refocusing resources and investment in markets where we see substantial scale opportunities. For example, Saudi Arabia is a 7,000 billion dollar economy and having got a license there clearly, we see that there are enormous opportunities for us to invest and go into that market.
“Markets are different and a group can always make a strategic decision in terms of where it feels it wants to give more attention and more focus to from a strategic point of view. On that is really the basis on which the group has taken the decision to say we will realign and refocus our resources to those markets where we feel there is substantial scale and substantial growth opportunities,” he noted.