Prince Kofi Amoabeng, a Ghanaian businessman and founder of the defunct UT Bank, has shared that his aspirations before venturing into the banking sector were to establish a Pan-African company.
The retired Captain of the military, who is popularly known as the founding member of UT Bank also indicated, he ventured into other businesses during his days in the wilderness. Some of which involved the sawmill business, air condition works, oil business and at some point sold wine.
During an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show, he revealed, “The dream was to build a Pan-African company, and we did a bit of that with UT Bank. It wasn’t just about the bank but a holding company, logistics, properties, private securities. We were also in Nigeria and South Africa which means, we already initiated footprints of the dream. It was an interesting start with four of us from Kantamanto, building up to this level. The dream was big and I can say we truly achieved a lot and we’re happy about that.”
Mr Amoabeng also admitted he never anticipated his business journey could have gotten to this point, where his UT Bank had to be inoperative. All he wanted was to serve as a reference to the Ghanaian youth to always believe in themselves and their aspirations.
“I never saw this coming, it was never on my mind. Humans grow and eventually pass away and in the same way, dreams fade. Nonetheless, I felt we had a good company, an indigenous company that was solid. I also wanted to present it to the youth that their dreams are doable. We thought again it would be sustained and something special and a hallmark for people to look up to. Unfortunately, we didn’t achieve that goal,” he added.
He further explained that although he identified things were falling apart, he engaged the board “to review the situation and come up with a reconstruction plan, to look at where things actually were going wrong and produce a good document. We looked at processes, the risk assessment, how to raise money and the how loans were granted and how to introduce additional capital and set that in motion.”
Regardless of all the adverse situations that collapsed his banking business, Rt. Capt. Prince Kofi Amoabeng revealed he has no remorse towards the government, as he believes the decision to close down some banks could be in the interest of Ghanaians.
By: Jude Tackie