Published: January 11, 2010
Directors' salaries slashed by 35% to combat “over bloated” costs.
Oceanic Bank International, one of the Nigerian banks bailed out by the country’s central bank last year, has announced that its executive directors will take pay cuts of up to 35% to help the bank recover its financial standing.
In a statement issued in response to “media reports on fresh disengagement of staff”, John Aboh, the bank’s CEO since the bail-out, said his team is “focused on the task of returning the bank to profitability”.
Aboh added that as well as making redundancies, the bank’s executive and senior management had agreed to their own pay cuts to “hasten the recovery pace of the bank”. Senior management have agreed to a 15-20% cut in their salaries. Executive directors, including Aboh, have agreed to a cut of 22.5-35%.
“We have critically examined the cost of running the bank against our sustainable revenue base and we realised that the cost is over bloated,” Aboh said. “The zeal to return the bank to winning ways is a shared vision by all the staff and this has been the driving force for the management.”
The bank will also streamline subsidiaries and branches.