By In life, the dream of everyone is to have a sweet ending in all endeavours. It is not the beginning that matters, but the end thereof. Those who have had smooth trajectory on their career path have every reason to give glory to their Maker, for as the scripture says, “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”
This can be said to be the lot of Tokunbo Abiru, group managing director/chief executive officer, Polaris Bank Limited.
Abiru, who has put in over three decades in the banking sector, and successfully carried out a transformation plan that changed the fortunes of the bank, will officially be bowing out tomorrow, August 31,2020, from Polaris.
Polaris, it would be recalled, inherited a lot of liabilities of the defunct Skye Bank, but through the doggedness of the out-going GMD, the bank was brought from insolvency to profitability. And looking at where the bank is today, the future is bright.
News about Abiru’s retirement as the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Polaris Bank Limited, made the headlines last Monday.
Those who have followed his activities as a banker, attest to the fact that the last four years were perhaps, the most defining part of his career. The reason is very simple.
His joining Polaris at the point he did was tantamount to a “crown of thorns.”
He was head-hunted in July 2016 by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to go and perform a magic, as it were.
He was pointedly saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that the defunct Skye Bank Plc was led out of insolvency. Realising the need to work as a team with other professionals on the board, and as team player he has always been, Abiru delivered on the mandate, by successfully leading the transformation of the defunct bank to become a thriving Polaris Bank in four years.
In his testimonial that was in the form of a synopsis he sent out in a short note that announced his plan to bow out of the bank, he gave some hints on how he performed the magic of transformation at Polaris Bank. “With the support of the Board and Executive Management of Polaris Bank and by God’s grace, I have delivered on the Central Bank of Nigeria’s mandate to stabilise and establish the Bank on the path of sustainable profitability,” Abiru said.
“Polaris Bank is today a digitally enabled, customer-friendly and forward-looking enterprise, which has secured its rightful place in the vanguard of Nigeria’s banking industry. What remains outstanding is the divestment of government ownership from the bank to suitable investors in order to further solidify the journey on the path of continuous growth,” he had announced cheerfully.
According to his personal account and the bank’s financial statements, Abiru has no doubt put Polaris on a good standing, placing it amongst the core of strong, leading Tier 2 banks in Nigeria. Evident from verified financial statements and other bank documents, the bank is now not just profitable and stable, but also poised to compete effectively with the established competitors in the Nigerian banking industry.
Transformation: It took some sweat!
Without result-oriented management, Polaris would not have been able to transit from liability to profitability, only in four years of its transformation. This perhaps justified the decision of the apex bank to appoint Ahmed as the Chairman of Polaris Board; Abiru as its GMD/CEO and other reputable professionals as executive and non-executive directors to pull the bank from the brink of outright collapse.
At its takeover, a failure of corporate governance was one of the bank’s major problems. This was evident in what the new management described the bank’s high level of non-performing insider-related loans. By implication, its funding structure and risk asset portfolio mix signified improper risk management exposing it to policy and currency risks.
Also, reports of forensic audits, which reputable accounting were engaged to conduct, revealed significant infractions under the bank’s previous managers. As a result, Polaris suffered significant deposit attrition. Customers, depositors, shareholders and institutional partners alike doubted its future until the apex bank announced its take-over on July 4, 2016.
Under Abiru, however, the new management managed the bank’s grievous challenges, which culminated in reduction of deposit loss, restoration of customer confidence and stabilisation of the bank. Also, it settled many matured trade and bilateral obligations and restructured outstanding balances with the relevant institutions and counterparties.
Abiru’s team, substantially, addressed the challenges of loan security inadequacy and improper collateral documentation in the legacy portfolio of the bank. It equally cleaned up loan and collateral documentation on most of the high value facilities, thereby putting the bank in a stronger position to enforce its rights as a lender.
With its aggressive loan recovery drive, the bank recovered over N60 billion of outstanding bad loans within Abiru’s first year in office. Under Abiru’s leadership, records showed, loan recovery rose to N100 billion at the end of the second year. Also, it reached settlement and restructuring agreements with many of the chronic bad debtors resulting in substantially improved payments and prospects of future recoveries.
Abiru, likewise, pursued other initiatives to restructure and reposition the bank based on its mandate including cost management and optimisation and divestments to improve the institution’s financial position. Among others, cost management initiatives include branch rationalisation, review of service contracts and cash management operations all of which have resulted in hundreds of millions of financial savings.
