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    Friday, August 30, 2013

    How FCMB Came into Existence -Chief Subomi Balogun


    Founder, First City Monument Bank Limited (FCMB), Chief Subomi Balogun, has disclosed how he conceived the idea to establish the investment company that gave birth to the bank.
    Balogun, who shared his vision of FCMB with journalists yesterday as part of its 30th anniversary in Lagos said he was inspired to set up Primrose Investment about 35 years ago (which later  became City Securities Limited (CSL), from which FCMB  came into being), during a government-funded training in the United Kingdom. The training,  according to him, was in legal drafting with particular specialisation in financial legislation, instruments and agreements, and was sponsored by the then Western Regional Government.

    “The government of Awolowo decided to train lawyers in the drafting of laws but not just public laws alone but laws for agreements and financial documents. So when I trained in the British parliament, I continued it in the city of London. It was while I was in the city of London I heard of stocks and shares. That was when I had the idea of setting up an investment company called Primrose Investment so definitely that training opened my eyes wide then I came into this country,” he explained.

    Balogun noted the training on legal drafting in the UK in addition to the financial and accounting experience he acquired when he worked for some years in Nigeria Industrial Development Bank (now Bank of Industry ), equipped him with enough skills to set up the Primrose Investment.

    According to him, “I rose to some of the highest levels of the civil service and at 28, I was the assistant parliamentary counsel of the federation, I was the assistant legal drafts man. I got to know of NIDB Nigerian Industrial Development Bank and I said to myself I must go there .What I did is useful for all coming generations and that training, helped me to get into this financial thing.

    “So that training gave me the broad mind and exposed me to finance so people expected that you should be an economist or accountant before you can do what I did.”
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