Bond Savings and Loans to Expand Medium Term Note to Gh?400 Million -CEO

By Kingsley Asare and Cephas Adjei Klu

Bond Savings and Loans Limited, has started a process to expand the shelf amount of its Medium Term Note (MTN) from GH?100 to GH?400 million in a bid to position it to finance big ticket projects.

The savings and loans company in 2015 embarked on an MTN programme to raise GH?100 million from the Ghana Stock Exchange through the Ghana Fixed Income Market (GFIM).

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bond Savings and Loans, George Ofosuhene who disclosed this at the company's turn of the Facts behind the Figures programme in Accra on Wednesday said the decision to raise additional amount from the GFIM followed the success that the MTN programme had chalked.

He said so far the company had raised GH?70 million from its MTN programme, which had helped consolidate it as one of the market leaders in the savings and loans industry.

Mr Ofosuhene said that the new strategic direction of the company was to focus on payroll lending and the additional amount to be raised through the MTN programme would help to expand the company's portfolio to the market and become a market leader.

Currently, he said about fifteen per cent of the company's portfolio was allocated to payroll lending.

He indicated that by the last quarter of this year, the company would have completed the process to raise the new amount, disclosing that accountants were currently doing due diligence on the operations of the company.

Highlighting on the benefits of the MTN programme to the company, Mr Ofosuhene said the programme had helped the company to expand its reach and helped in its liquidity planning.

"The MTN programme has helped us to reduce our cost of fund and positioned the company to finance big ticket transactions in commerce, services and oil and gas sectors," he said.

Mr Ofosuhene touching on the way forward, said the company, in the coming years would focus on pursuing quality asset growth, expand the non-funded income base of the company through strategic direction, increase its customer reach through mobile technology and expand its deposit base with the focus on developing mass market products.

He advised the public against panic withdrawals, stressing that it posed serious risks to the survival of companies operating in banking and finance industry.

Mr Ofosuhene therefore cautioned players in the banking and finance industry and the general public to desist from churning out false information which had the potential to trigger panic withdrawals.

The Chief Financial Officer of Bond Savings and Loans, Malik Aidoo said the profit of the company reduced from GH?12, 903 in 2017 to GH?8, 660 in 2018.

He said the drop in profit was due to hike in the impairment charges incurred by the company in 2018, which increased from GH?9, 228 in 2017 to GH?10, 773 in 2018.

However, Mr Aidoo said assets of the company increased from GH?353, 330 to GH?401, 202 in 2018.

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