(L-R) Dr. Naresh trehan, chairman/MD, Medanta Ltd; Dr. Rajesh Ahiawat, chairman, Division of Urology and Renal Transplant in India and Dr. Sudhir Dubey, head, minimally invasive, Medanta, during Indian day at the sixth international medical exhibition and conference in Eko Hotel, Lagos.

A new battle line may have been drawn between Union Bank of Nigeria Plc workers and the management of the bank over the new shareholding structure which was announced last weekend. The full-scale battle may be fully unveiled before the Extra-ordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the bank which comes up on September 30 in Abuja.
The workers were last Friday being forced to sign proxies for the EGM through their departmental heads who were mandated by the management to tell them that if they fail to sign the proxies the bank will finally collapse and all the workers will begin to face some precarious situations like their colleagues in the former Afribank, Springbank and Bank PHB which have been nationalised without any clue as to the future of the workers. The proxy is meant to give the bank room to accomplish the shareholding arrangement which it had already agreed with its core investor.
The workers, however, see the bank’s position as a threat and have refused to accept the proxy forms. There are still some strong moves by management to divide the union so as to get the majority of the votes through proxy so that they can move on with the next line of action in their merger and acquisition plans.
Last week, the bank revealed that it has settled for a 60 per cent shareholding for its core investors, African Alliance Capital, 21 per cent for existing shareholders and 19 per cent for AMCON. This structure is believed to have given the new core investor an overwhelming majority, with existing shareholders trailing behind as against their majority holding before the banking sector crisis.
BusinessWorld can now reveal that Union Bank’s management has been wooing its workers union to give them proxy votes during the coming EGM. The bank’s management set up a committee to discuss the shareholding issues with the union. The bank’s pensioners have also convened a meeting with the union to explain to them their own position on the entire development. Authentic sources close to the union told BusinessWorld that they have not decided on the next line of action, but obviously they are not inclined to buy the sharing position adopted by the management and the investors.
“The arrangement is not tidy at all. We believe that Union Bank assets were grossly undervalued. We deserve to have about 40 per cent of the shares even though we know that it will be difficult for the existing shareholders to raise the money, taking into consideration the price being considered as the final share price. We had always asked the question on the sharing structure whenever we meet with management, but they had always brushed the question aside. We still believe that the assets of Union Bank were seriously undervalued so as to create the impression that there is nothing left in the bank, but what we had always asked is that the management should give us the true financial  position of the bank”.
Mr Boniface Okezie, a prominent leader of a shareholders group noted that the plot to complete the move to give away the bank is still thickening even after the management and the Central Bank of Nigeria had employed all sorts of methods such as pay-offs, provisioning and waivers to create a picture of distress in the bank.