Ecobank harps on businesses outliving owners, transition to generations
Pan African financial group, Ecobank Nigeria has trained its customers on techniques and management strategies that will assist in making sure that sustainable wealth is passed down from one generation to another.
Carried out by its advisory arm, Ecobank said the advancement of ideas that would lead to wealth creation and its sustainability through several generations is part of the bank’s drive to support businesses in Nigeria.
In his remarks during a breakfast session organized for its premier banking customers, Managing Director of Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan, observed that the bank is committed to having regular sessions to educate customers on ways to ensure their businesses outlive them and successfully transit to another generation afterward.
The session was organized in conjunction with the bank’s Securities, Wealth and Asset Management (SWAM) unit in Lagos.
In his submission, Akinwuntan averred that Ecobank, which has footprints in 36 countries in Africa, is well-positioned to advise and give access to customers to other African markets.
According to him, “We believe that successful individuals, companies and businesses are just more about ensuring that they endure from generation to generation. That is mostly of significant interest to us.
“So, what we are trying to do is to expand the network or thought process and the access to information, access to markets and opportunities that can further improve the wealth creation, generation and sustenance and also, how to expand the coast further. “We know how to provide relevant advice to help work with our customers to protect the value of their wealth to growing it and sustaining it from one generation to another.”
“Ecobank has experience across 36 countries in Africa and one of the key areas we identify is that in Africa, it is not that we don’t create wealth, the challenge is how to sustain and make sure that the wealth moves from generation to generation.
“And this is an issue across Africa and Nigeria being the powerhouse of Africa, it is only appropriate that Ecobank in Nigeria brings together our premier banking customers and have this type of session where we talk about the real issues,” he said.
In his comments, the Chief Investment Officer, EDC Fund Management Limited, Akinola Sowemimo explained that “What we are trying to do is to enable our customers to be able to secure their future. We found that there hasn’t been enough education of customers on how to plan for the future and how to plan their wealth for their children, secure it and make it tax-efficiently through a number of our products.
“We know our clients know how to make money, but we are there to support them to expand the base of the wealth that they have. We also know that our clients would like to see how that wealth is retained from one generation to the other and that is why we have brought experts to share knowledge on how other parts of the world have been able to create families whose wealth have transited from one generation to the next and therefore, the wealth of the nation is actually sustained,” Sowemimo noted.
