ADB to spill beans on IPO

The Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) is expected to discuss its shortcomings in its Initial Public Offer (IPO) when officials of the bank come face-to-face with journalists this morning at the International Press Center in Accra.

The bank has on two occasions suspended its IPO which was scheduled to have closed in October, 2015.

This was triggered by series of court actions against the IPO with the complainants mostly calling on the court to order the bank to first seek parliamentary approval before going ahead with the transaction.

The court actions were instituted by the General Secretary of the Union of Industry, Commerce and Finance (UNICOF) workers of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), John Esiape and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo-Markin.

However, UNICOF, on Wednesday, August 18, 2015 withdrew a case it filed against the adb at the Supreme Court over its IPO.

Earlier in the month, an Accra High Court threw out a case the Union brought against the bank, seeking to place an injunction on its IPO.

The feud between the two parties was not restricted to the courtroom alone as some members of the Bank, especially, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Executive Head, HR and the Managing Director were personally attacked by UNICOF.

A fortnight ago, John Esiape of UNICOF also wrote to the Managing Director of the Agricultural Development Bank (adb), Stephen Kpodzih, asking for forgiveness for disrupting the Bank’s Initial Public Offer (IPO) initiative.

“The relationship between the leadership of UNICOF on the one hand and the Board and Management of the Bank has been strained since April, 2015, due to some disagreement over the process leading to the IPO, in particular, and the reorganization of the Bank, in general.”

“We trust that our apology will be accepted so that we can rebuild the trust between the Board and Management on the one hand and the Union on the other,” noted the General Secretary of UNICOF, John Esiape, in a letter dated September 28, 2015 and addressed to the Managing Director of the adb and copied to the General Secretary, TUC (Ghana) and three others.

UNICOF also apologized for the harsh manner in which they attacked some individuals of the Bank over its IPO process, noting that those attacks and the harm caused are regretted.

“On my own behalf and on behalf of the leadership and members of UNICOF, I would like to apologize to the Board and Management of adb. I would also like to render a sincere apology to the Chairman of the Board, Managing Director and Executive Head, HR for the personal attacks they have suffered.”

“We regret these personal attacks and the harm caused.”

Afenyo-Markin on the other hand is alleged to have taken some GH¢250,000.00 from the bank as bribe to soften his stance in the case but was still demanding for more.

He had also threatened on Metro TV to go the full-scale of the case until the right thing was done.

But three weeks down the line, the MP had secretly withdrawn the suit against the ADB. He has since not discussed the matter.

The Bank is expected to discuss the issues that had undermined its IPO.