Zenith Bank: Jim Ovia Chairs New Holding Company

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has approved the appointment of Jim Ovia as Chairman of the Zenith Bank Holding company, ZBHC.

This development comes on the heels of the Regulator’s approval for the commercial bank to restructure as a holdco, the bank said in a statement on Friday.

The change of the bank’s structure to a Holder also came barely a week after the CBN fixed the maximum tenure of commercial bank chief executives and directors at 10 years maximum.

On Thursday, the Deputy Managing Director of the bank, Adaora Umeoji resigned her appointment in effect to the CBN’s new tenure guidelines having spent the maximum 10 years as one of the directors of the leading deposit money bank, DMB in the country.

The implication of this, is that, the bank has now joined the league of other banks such as the FCMB, Access, First Bank, GTCO, and others which had since been operating a holding structure following the approval of the Godwin Emefiele-led apex bank.

“The CBN has granted approval-in-principle for Zenith Bank to operate a non-operating financial holding company structure.

“Furthermore, the CBN approved Mr Jim Ovia as the Chairman of Zenith Holdco Plc (in-formation and for Mr Jim Ovia to also continue as the Chairman of Zenith Bank until the commencement of Zenith Holdco,” the bank stated in a statement signed by Micheal Otu, the Company Secretary, on Friday.