It was a historic moment as the United Bank for Africa (UBA) held its first ever virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM) after 71 years of operations. According to the African foremost bank, plans were afoot for the AGM before the novel coronavirus crisis supervened, forcing the organisers to go 100 percent digital.
Relaying the experience on her LinkedIn page, Bola Atta, Group Director, Corporate Communications at UBA Plc and CEO at UBA Foundatio, noted that the bank had been planning the AGM before the Covid-19 pandemic crept in unannounced, adding that they had thought to postpone it hoping the situation would get under control.
“We decided to go online. I wasn’t sure how that would pan out. I thought for a minute that it might be easier than an actual physical AGM. I was wrong! We had so many rehearsals to ensure things would go smoothly: technical set up, sound, graphics, participants, look and feel, speeches, procedure, streaming, and so much to consider.
“This was after all, a first. I haven’t slept a wink today. But it went smoothly and successfully. It cost a lot less than an actual AGM and was better controlled. I learnt a lot about technology in the process. Today just confirmed to me that life will never really be the same again. It’s a new dawn. We need to make the best of every situation in which we find ourselves,” she said.
“UBA has over 270,000 shareholders and today declared dividends of 1 naira per every 5o kobo share, in the middle of the most uncertain of circumstances,” Atta added.
Commenting on the virtual conference, separately on his LinkedIn page, Tony Elumelu, Chairman at Heirs Holdings, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has altered our way of life but has also created some memorable moments for us.
“Today, as Chairman of Transcorp Nigeria, I presided over the first virtual Annual General Meeting to be held in Nigeria with 129 proxies representing 21,450,062,121 units of shares.”
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