Kibaara takes over from the outgoing Group CEO Frank Ireri who has been at the helm of the institution for the past thirteen years.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 18 – HF Group Plc has poached Robert Kibaara from NIC Bank appointing him as the new Group Chief Executive Officer.
Kibaara takes over from the outgoing Group CEO Frank Ireri who has been at the helm of the institution for the past thirteen years.
In May, Ireri announced he will exit the company in March 2019 after he opted not to renew his contract which ends in March 2019.
With 24 years of banking experience, Kibaara joins HF Group from NIC Bank where he served as the Director for Retail Banking, and was instrumental in the growth of retail customer numbers and in the overall funding of the Bank through deposit mobilization.
HF Group’s Chairman, Steve Mainda said the appointment of Kibaara marks a critical milestone for the Group as it comes at a time when HF has embarked on a new turnaround strategy focusing on full service banking, with investment in digital and retail banking.
HF reported an 86.07 percent slide in profits to hit Sh126.22 million after-tax profit for the year ended December, from the previous Sh905.83 million.
The 2016 profit was a 24.32 percent drop for the listed firm.
The decline in 2017 is attributable to Sh957.75 million decline in net interest income to Sh2.98 billion as total operating costs rose nearly a fifth to Sh3.99 billion.
The group has been struggling to grow its loan book owing to increased provisions against bad debt since 2015 when profit rose 22.72 percent to Sh1.2 billion.
