The management of the WAICA Reinsurance (WAICA Re) Corporation plc, a Sierra Leone-based and a wholly-owned reinsurance outfit of West African Insurance Companies Association, says it has commenced the issuance of share certificates to members of its pool.
WAICA Pool, which has been in existence many years back, was collapsed into WAICA Reinsurance Company when it was established in 2011.
The regional reinsurer says the move is informed by the need to authenticate shareholding structure of the organisation and integrate members of the Pool, whose assets have been added to the reinsurance company following the collapse of the pool.
Meanwhile, the company operated successfully in the last three years is set to pay dividend to its shareholders, a situation that has excited insurance firms in the West African market, with Nigeria as major beneficiary.
Abiola Ekundayo, managing director of of the company, who said this during an interview with journalists on the sideline of the ongoing 42nd African Insurance Organisation Conference in Tunisia, said “the company has been able to compute the list of the Pool members whose assets are in the company and is prepared to issue the share certificates to further boost their confidence and support for the reinsurance company.”
The exercise is tended to reward those who contributed to the pool from inception and ensur that they are provided with the opportunity to own shares in the three year-old regional institution, Ekundayo said.
He urged Nigerians to take advantage of the opportunity unveiled by the company to be part of the ownership structure, hinting that the reinsurer was set to pay first ever dividend to shareholders, while plans were in top gear to raise its capital base through issuance of Right Issue soon.
WAICA Reinsurance Corporation is a public limited liability company incorporated under the laws of Sierra Leone (Companies Act 2009) on March 7, 2011.
In the years following the creation of West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) in 1973, the founding fathers had the desire to establish a reinsurance organisation to help mitigate the effects of the lack of reinsurance capacity within the West African insurance industry.
To fulfil this ambition, the founding fathers considered it prudent to start off by creating a reinsurance pool which hopefully will someday metamorphose into a fully fledged reinsurance corporation. Today, the WAICA Reinsurance Pool has turned into WAICA Reinsurance Corporation plc, a dream come true.
There is no gain in saying that there is lack of reinsurance capacity in the West African sub region, which situation is compelling insurance companies to seek reinsurance protection in other parts of the world where the treaties offered are not exactly competitive and/or affordable and the service sometimes almost non-existent.
The current WAICA Executive Council in order to give impetus to the development and realisation of the idea of establishing a fully fledged reinsurance institution then embarked on revitalising and implementing the idea of establishing the WAICA Reinsurance Corporation (WAICA Re).
To that end, the executive committee reconfirmed and endorsed the age-old decision to locate the headquarters of WAICA Reinsurance Corporation (WAICA Re) in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and to have major operating centres in Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria.
Apart from the provision of reinsurance capacity, the establishment of WAICA Re is a good example of regional socio-economic integration.
Modestus Anaesoronye
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