Club 100, collection of bankrupt companies - Databank Director

Mr Yofi Grant, Executive Director of Databank Financial Services has described Ghana Club 100, a group of well performing companies as “a collection of some very big bankrupt companies.”

He questioned the reference to the debt-ridden national airline, Ghana Airways as a national asset saying, “we should stop describing Ghana Airways as a national assets. This is because from all indications, it had proved to be a liability,

Mr Grant was speaking at a seminar organized by the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) on falling interest rates and alternative investment opportunities and strategies for effective financial management.

He said most of the companies in the Club 100 were under performing yet the impression had been created that they were doing very well. The Executive Director noted that there was a perception that some Ghanaian companies were cooking their figures, adding that these companies indulge in this because of the business environment.

“The question the companies will ask is: what will they gain from telling the truth?” he said. He explained that figures provided by some of the companies raised a lot of question marks. Mr Francis Tweneboah, managing director of the Ghana Stock Exchange said investment in equity on the average provided the highest returns on investment.

He said while return on the stock market as a whole between January and August, this year was 37, percent; interest rate on the 91-day Treasury bill was average 22.88 percent within the same period. The US dollar has year-to-date appreciated by 11.91 percent.

Mr Tweneboah explained that the return on the stock market did not include dividend payout. He noted that though they had the downturns, the gains far outweighed the losses.

He said some of the benefits in equity investment include liquidity of the investment, tax exemption from capital gains and called for the introduction of tax reforms on the capital market in order to attract more investors.