Advertisement

Fate of small-scale BPR shareholders in balance

Saturday August 01 2015
RwandaMarket0207nb

The fate of small shareholders in Banque Populaire du Rwanda hangs in the balance as Atlas Mara finalises the acquisition of the majority stake in the bank. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA

The fate of small shareholders in Banque Populaire du Rwanda hangs in the balance as Atlas Mara finalises the acquisition of the majority stake in the bank.

The bank issued a communique calling on all shareholders to register and re-establish their status by July 18 or lose shares.

As of May this year, up to 415,292 of the 590,292 shareholders had not registered, increasing a likelihood of many losing their shares.

BPR chief executive of Ephraim Turahirwa told Rwanda Today that shareholders had responded positively to the request for registration.

“They are responding, if the shareholders find it necessary to extend the date they set they will do that, as of now I can’t say much.

“My job is to look after the shareholders money, they have representatives, they should be knowing better about the direction they want to take,” he said, adding that the exercise will clean up the registry of shareholders to avoid cases of ghost shareholders.

Advertisement

A section of shareholders have expressed concern over the process of verifying shareholding with some insisting that the BPR should publish the list of the 415,292 shareholders according to districts.

In particular, they said this will be fair for orphans whose parents were shareholders but died during the 1994 genocide.

However, management of BPR maintains that the shareholders will not lose their shares.

“It’s not that they will lose their ownership, their shares will be sold and kept, this is a registration issue to know the whereabouts of the bank’s shareholders,” he said.

Isaac Bizumuremyi, a commercial lawyer with Lex chambers said a shareholder does not need to reaffirm his or her shareholding capacity in a company to remain a shareholder.

“A shareholder does not lose his share in a company at any time and it does not require him to re-affirm his capacity as a shareholder in order to remain one, shares can be diluted in percentage but the number of shares will remain,” he said.

“Once you are a shareholder, you are a shareholder, even when you die, the law on succession or inheritance will have to apply but your shares remain intact” he said.

He added that in the event of diluting shares or creating new shares, the shareholders will be consulted first.