The Middle East Bank’s Annual General Meeting and Extraordinary General Meeting were held on Thursday morning, Tir 30, 1401 ( July 21, 2022), where the shareholders approved the financial statements of the year ending 29 Esfand 1400 (20 March 2022) and a 200 Rials cash dividend for each share. In addition, in the EGM, the shareholders approved a 10 thousand billion Rials capital increase, from the accumulated retained earnings (profit capitalization), to increase the registered capital of (وخاور) (the symbol representing MEB in Tehran Stock exchange) to 35 thousand billion Rials.
The MEB Meetings were held in the Eram Hotel conference hall, with the attendance of more than 78% of shareholders while the other shareholders could simultaneously attend and participate online.
The Meeting started by Golam Ali Kamyab, Chair of MEB Board of Directors and the chair of the Meeting, greeting the shareholders and then the participants voted for Hassan Salilmi and Javad Khansari as the supervisors and Ali Khalili Sadatloo as the secretary of the Meeting. After completion of the Board, the Bank’s Managing Director, his deputy, representative of Securities and Exchange Organization, the legal inspector and the independent auditor were invited to join the panel to present their reports and answer the shareholders questions.
The meeting continued by the Chair asking the Financial Deputy (CFO) to report the performance of the Bank’s Board of Directors to the shareholders.
Majid Nour Mohammadi, The MEB Assistant Managing Director in Finance Division, went on the stage and after extending greetings, read the Board of Directors’ Report to the AGM Participants and also the Bank’s Managing Director’s message and then gave a brief report on the Bank’s financial operations to the shareholders.
A part of Dr. Aghili’s message, the MEB Managing Director, said: “Despite last year’s challenges, we fortunately succeeded to present a positive record of banking operations to the distinguished shareholders and accomplished the anticipated objectives. This year, the after-tax profit reached 20.578 billion Rials, reflecting 24% growth over previous year.
On financial services, having received the necessary permissions from the Central bank, the preliminaries for performing the investment banking operations have been prepared. This results in the Bank’s financial strengths to finance the customers’ projects and, hopefully, will lead to attraction of foreign investment as well. The Middle East Bank, due to compliance with professional banking standards and the Board’s stress on health and accuracy of banking operations, is amongst few banks which, with regard to capital adequacy, maintain the required ratio and acceptable scores, and is among the banks with highest rankings on capital adequacy ratio in the country.
Health of operations and accuracy in dissemination of information is always a high priority for the bank’s Management Board and the Bank’s ranking in transparency and information circulation has always been outstanding among the listed banks. The MEB shares, 90.5% of which floating in Tehran Stock Exchange system, were traded in 234 years of the last year.
Before voting on other items in the Meeting Agenda, the MEB Managing Director explained the Bank’s plans and answered the shareholders questions.
The shareholders set the remuneration and attendance fees of non-executive board members and chose Donya-e-Eghtesad and Ettelaat as official newspapers for the MEB notices. The Bayat Rayan Chartered Accountants was chosen by shareholders as the independent auditor and main legal inspector and the Tadvin & Company as the independent inspector and alternate inspector.
To assist renovation of schools in less privileged areas and other social responsibilities, the shareholders agreed to allocate 60 billion Rials for such humanitarian activities.
It is worth mentioning that immediately after the AGM, the Bank’s EGM convened and shareholders, having listened to the Board of Directors report on capital increase justifications and the auditor’s report on the same issue, voted unanimously for capital increase of 10 thousand Rials from retained earnings. This approval increases the Bank’s capital to 35 thousand billion Rials.
Source: MEB"s Communication Department - Date: (24 July 2022)