By Daniel Edu
FBN Holdings, a financial institution, has issued a statement refuting claims that it has received a court order to halt its 11th Annual General Meeting (AGM) scheduled for Tuesday. In a notice filed with the Nigerian Exchange Limited, the company’s acting Company Secretary, Adewale Arogundade, emphasized that no court order has been served to prevent the upcoming AGM.
The statement reads, “The attention of FBN Holdings Plc (the Company) has been drawn to recent media reports purporting that the Company has received a Court Order stopping it from holding the Annual General Meeting (AGM) scheduled for August 15, 2023.
“We confirm that this assertion is a false narrative as the Company has, as at the date hereof, not been served with any court order to stop the forthcoming AGM.
“Suffice to mention that the AGM is a statutory meeting of Shareholders that must be held in accordance with the law, further to which the Company will notify the regulators and the public as appropriate if there is any lawful order to restrain the Company from conducting the same. We hereby assure our esteemed Shareholders that the AGM shall hold on August 15, 2023, as planned, and we look forward to their attendance and active participation at the meeting.”
This comes after court orders published in national newspapers appeared to indicate that a Federal High Court in Lagos had issued an order against FBN Holdings, preventing it from proceeding with its 11th AGM. The order, based on a petition by Olusegun Onagoruwa in suit No: FHC/L/CP/1271/2022, urged the bank to refrain from various actions related to the AGM.
Despite the reported court order, some shareholders had voiced their protest at the bank’s headquarters earlier, advocating for the AGM to proceed and calling for regulatory interventions.
At the AGM, FBN Holdings intends to seek shareholders’ approval to raise N150 billion through a rights issue and to elect new directors, including individuals such as billionaire Femi Otedola and Samson Ariyibi, among other resolutions.