Cal Bank is not paying any dividend to shareholders for the financial year 2017 as the bank seeks to meet the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG’s) minimum capital requirement.

According to the Bank, this may have a consequence of reducing the funds available for the bank's recapitalisation before the December deadline.

This was disclosed by the Chairman of the Board, Paarock Van Percy at the bank's Annual General Meeting in Accra.

According to him, in lieu of the dividend payments, the board has recommended a bonus issue of one share for every seven shares held.

The bonus is expected to compensate shareholders for not receiving a direct cash dividend at the same time providing value to the bank for income surplus transfer.

Meanwhile the last time the Cal Bank paid dividends to shareholders was in 2015 at the cost of about GHc53 million, Mr Van Percy said.

Shareholders’ approval 

Shareholders have therefore approved the recommendation by the board and ordered for a transfer of GHc250 million from the income surplus account to stated capital to increase the bank's stated capital to GHc350 million and make up the difference through operational results. 

The bank also secured approval to increase the authorized share capital of the bank from GHc1 billion ordinary shares to GHc2 billion.

The bank recorded a profit after tax of GHc145.2 million. This was achieved by an improvement in operating income of 25.9% and a reduction in total operation cost by 30.5 percent. 

The results underline the efficient deployment of the bank's resources and use of the right technology in pursuit of its digital transformation agenda.