‘Marketplace Africa’, host Zain Asher sits down with the founder and CEO of
Zenith Bank to discuss the secrets of his success and the impact Nigeria’s
recession had on business.
Jim Ovia describes the bank’s successes over
the last 27 years: “I started Zenith Bank in 1990 and 20 years later the Zenith
Bank shareholder value was four billion US dollars. From four million dollars to
four billion dollars… You can do the math. It’s some thousands of percentages
of return.”
Ovia determines that this level of success
is unique to Nigeria: “These kinds of numbers and this kind of return doesn’t
happen everywhere. You don’t even get it in America, Europe or Russia. You can
get it in Nigeria.”
When asked about the challenges he faced in this
time, Ovia explains to CNN that poor infrastructure was one of the largest
obstacles: “Issues like inadequacies of infrastructural availability were solved
when we began building our own roads to our branches. Our customers need to be
able to reach us… I call it BYOI – Build Your Own Infrastructure.”
Asher
asks what impact the Nigerian recession has had on Ovia’s business. Although
business slowed in Nigeria, the impact was no different to anywhere else in the
world experiencing a similar economic downturn. Ovia explains: “During the
recession in Nigeria, just like in any other country or economy, opening
[non-performing loans] will slow down. Not because those loans are terribly bad
or because those loans will be completely written off as lost. Businesses did
slow down and so repayment programmes equally slowed down.”
Asher asks
Ovia what a young entrepreneur would have to do in order to get a loan from
Zenith Bank. Ovia explains: “[It would be] very easy. The individual must meet
what we call ‘risk acceptance criteria’ and when he does meet these criteria,
he’ll get a loan.”
Ovia gives some advice for young people who want to
know how he made it in business. Ovia tells the programme: “Don’t give up…
they should remain focused. They should remain determined.”
