ATLAS Mara Limited Strategic Update & Leadership Changes (0523X)
February 16 2017 - 3:02AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMATMA
RNS Number : 0523X
ATLAS Mara Limited
16 February 2017
Atlas Mara Limited
16 February 2017
Accelerated Strategic Execution, Successful Equity Raising,
Leadership Change and Rationalization of Costs
Atlas Mara Limited (the "Company" or the "Group"), the
sub-Saharan Africa banking group, today announces several measures
to accelerate its strategic execution of its three core areas:
Commercial and Retail Banking, Fintech, and Markets and Treasury.
This will enable faster expansion and responsiveness to changes in
the market environment. As part of the execution strategy, the
company plans to significantly reduce operating expense and staff
cost at the center by more than US$20 million per year on an
annualised basis.
The Group's three core businesses will be run by existing Group
leadership: Sanjeev Anand will become Group Managing Director for
Retail and Commercial Banking, Mike Christelis, Group Managing
Director for Markets and Treasury, and Chidi Okpala, Group Managing
Director for Fintech.
Effective 15 February, John Vitalo stepped down as CEO and from
the Board. John joined the company in 2014 as Atlas Mara's first
CEO, leading the company to its current, profitable seven-country
footprint and operational scale. The Board will appoint a new Group
CEO in due course.
To seed its Fintech and Global Markets Business, and for general
corporate purposes, the company successfully closed an
oversubscribed equity raise through a placing of ordinary shares.
Over 90% of this offering was subscribed by our existing
shareholders, as announced to the market earlier today.
Atlas Mara expects its 2016 full year earnings to be broadly in
line with market expectations.
Media
Teneo Blue Rubicon, +44 (20) 7260 2700
Anthony Silverman
About Atlas Mara
Atlas Mara Limited (LON: ATMA) is a financial services
institution listed on the London Stock Exchange. Its vision is to
create sub-Saharan Africa's premier financial services institution
through organic and inorganic growth by combining the best of
global institutional knowledge with extensive local insights. With
a presence in seven sub-Saharan countries, Atlas Mara aims to be a
positive disruptive force in the markets in which we operate by
leveraging technology to provide innovative and differentiated
product offerings, excellent customer service and accelerate
financial inclusion in the countries in which the Company operates.
For more information, visit www.atlasmara.com.
Biographies
Sanjeev Anand
Sanjeev has been Managing Director of Banque Populaire du Rwanda
Ltd (BPR) since January 2016. BPR was formed by the merger of
BRD-Commercial Rwanda with BPR. The majority shareholder is Atlas
Mara and Rabobank is the largest minority shareholder.
Prior to his current appointment, Sanjeev Anand was Managing
Director of I&M Bank Rwanda Limited (previously Banque
Commerciale du Rwanda-BCR). During this period, he managed the
transition of ownership of the bank from Actis to the I&M
consortium, comprising I&M Bank, DEG and PROPARCO.
Prior to joining BCR/I&M, Sanjeev had a long career spanning
25 years with Citibank, where he held a number of senior
assignments across Asia, Europe, America and Africa. Some of the
key positions he held during this period were as CEO of Citibank in
Zambia and Uganda and Executive Director of Citibank Nigeria.
Mike Christelis
Mike Christelis joined Atlas Mara as the Head of Treasury and
Markets in 2015. Mike has a total of 30 years corporate and banking
experience.
Prior to joining Atlas Mara Mike worked for Barclays Africa and
Absa Capital for seven years, the last three of which he was the
Head of Markets for Sub-Saharan Africa. In this role, he managed
the markets area of the 12 Barclays Africa businesses. During this
time Mike was responsible for transforming the business from a
purely retail managed business into a full investment bank
operation, growing the product range while at the same time
implementing a rigorous control framework and growing revenue.
Mike also worked for 11 years at Rand Merchant bank in various
roles as well as in corporate treasury at Bayer and Siemens.
Chidi Okpala
Chidi was appointed Chief Digital Officer at Atlas Mara in
January 2016 to drive the Innovation, Digital Financial Services
and Financial Inclusion agenda across our sub-Saharan
franchises.
Prior to that, he was with Bharti Airtel International as CEO
for Airtel Money, with responsibility for Mobile Money businesses
across 17 countries in Africa. While at Bharti, he built Airtel
Money to become one of the largest providers of Retail Financial
Services in Africa with 12m active (90Day) customers and over 100m
and $2B in monthly transaction count and value.
Before Bharti Airtel, he was the Division CEO for Retail Banking
at United Bank for Africa Plc, overseeing Personal and Business
Banking in 19 countries. He earlier had a two-year stint with
Accenture as a Senior Consultant in the Strategy and Business
Architecture.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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