The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of uniBank Dr Kwabena Duffour Jnr has assured staff and clients of ADB Bank that nothing has changed despite the acquisition of controlling stake by the former.

“The voting rights and transactions were promised to uniBank so uniBank will take over ADB. In the short term, nothing will change; the two institutions will be operating separately.”

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The takeover follows a pledge by a consortium of financial institutions that control majority shares ADB Bank.

This means Belstar Capital has pledged their shares, proceeds, entitlement and voting rights to a leading local bank, uniBank.

Belstar Capital, an investment and project finance institution has started a move to purchase a significant number of shares at uniBank as a means to make the bank qualify the new minimum capital policies as stipulated by the Bank of Ghana.

These institutions took up a substantial stake in ADB’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2016 that paved the way for the bank to go public.

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The shares pledged to uniBank, means it now holds 51% controlling stake in ADB and with the additional majority voting rights, can now determine the strategic direction of ADB.

Despite the pledge of shares and voting rights, this does not constitute an outright sale, and therefore does not contravene any rules and regulations of industry regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

The move is believed to form part of the investment and project finance institution’s effort at raising the estimated GH¢600 million to secure its new shares at Unibank.