The Urban Development Bank of Nigeria (UDBN) has embarked on a N26.5 billion fund drive under its five-year strategic business plan, its Managing Director, Mr. Adekunle Oyinloye, has said.
In a press statement after the bank’s extra-ordinary general meeting, Oyinloye said that the fund comprised N3 billion equity and N23.5billion debt capital as approved by the bank’s shareholders.
He said that the five-year strategic plan was predicated on UDBN’s mission to transform the nation’s infrastructure for enhanced productivity and to re-position itself as “the premier focal point for infrastructure development in Nigeria”.
Oyinloye said that the bank recognised the nation’s vast infrastructure demand and reiterated that its primary attention would be on developing the core infrastructural base needed for the nation’s rapid economic development through products and services permitted by its specialised banking license.
He said that the fund raising drive followed a carefully implemented re-positioning of the bank by private sector investors to serve as a lead agent in the actualisation of the government’s aim of creating the platform, through large-scale infrastructural development.
Oyinloye listed some of UDBN’s core focus areas to include transport infrastructure, municipal infrastructure and common services like mass housing and district development; water and solid waste management and power and renewable energy.
The bank chief executive said that the bank had identified some commercially and economically viable projects that would benefit immediately from the funds.
“The step we have just taken is amongst a series in a deliberate move to build an institution that we hope, in time, shall graduate from a national player to a regional force,” he said.
?Oyinloye said that it was in a bid to actualise its strategic plans that UDBN forged strategic alliances with globally reputed financial and technical partners like the Development Bank of Southern Africa, PricewaterhouseCoopers and GHK International.
“We feel confident that the time is right to reach out to seek the support of like-minded investors to shore up both the capital and knowledge base from which we can draw upon in our drive for implementation”, he said.