Two Executive Directors have resigned from their positions in the Kenyatta family-owned NCBA bank group.
Jeremy Ngunze has left his position as the Executive Director of NCBA Bank Group and Group Director Corporate Development and Regional Business.
Just a day after Jeremy Ngunze retired, NCBA in a notice announced that Livingstone Murage, who was until yesterday the Group Company Secretary and Group Director- Governance had also resigned.
Ngunze had been at the bank for 12 years, while Murage’s exit marked the end of his 35-year stint at the lender.
In September last year, NCBA became Kenya’s third-largest bank by market size following the merger with NIC Bank.
Soon after the merger, NCBA announced plans to retrench staff amid a tough operating environment in the wake of Covid-19.
“Today, I announce that we are embarking on a process to reorganise our workforce, which will result in the reduction of staff headcount. For a company whose brand purpose is to inspire greatness, this is incredibly difficult to confront,” said Managing Director John Gachora in a statement to employees in November 2020.
To survive the tough times, Gachora said the bank had since taken certain actions, including the reversal of an earlier recommendation to pay cash dividends to shareholders and early redemption of the bank’s medium-term notes to save on interest payments.
It has also closed more than a dozen branches where there was duplicity to cut costs.
Of the seven tier-one banks, NCBA and Absa Kenya suffered the highest drop in profitability in the first nine months of 2020, reporting pretax profits of 65 per cent and 59 per cent respectively.
NCBA also recalled its dividends for the financial year ending 2019.
