Victoria Commercial Bank top owner passes on

Victoria commercial bank founder and top shareholder Kanji Damji Pattni has passed on, bringing to an end his 33-year service at the lower tier bank that started as a finance company.

Mr Pattni died on Monday, February 24, the bank announced in an obituary published in the dailies. Until his death, he was serving as a non-executive director.

Mr Pattni is the top shareholder in the bank with a stake of 11.263 percent. Other significant shareholders are Orchid Holdings Limited (8.121 percent) and Kingsway Investments Limited with a stake of 7.143 percent.

The bank hailed him as a “long-standing patriarch” who guided the institution from its founding year in 1987 to date.

Mr Pattni has steered the board of directors as Chairman since inception until mid-2018 when he passed the mantle to Ketaki D Sheth.

“His visionary and astute leadership resulted in the development of Victoria Commercial Bank into a leading private bank. He is an extraordinarily dynamic, self-made businessman,” the bank describes him.

The bank focuses on large corporations and high-net-worth clients. It started off as Victoria Finance Company, a non-bank finance institution but converted into a bank in 1996, following the issuance of a banking license by the Central Bank of Kenya.

He was also sitting on the board of Victoria Towers and Victoria at Two Rivers Limited, a premier office park with a twin tower design.

Mr Pattni is succeeded by his wife Jayaben Kanji Pattni and two children Arvind Kanji Pattni and Yogesh Kanji Pattni.

Mr Yogesh Kanji Pattni is the current chief executive officer of the bank while his daughter-in-law, Azmina Pattni, serves as the head of liabilities relationships.

The bank’s best performance was in 2015 when net profit grew by 54 percent to Sh713.8 million. The profit dropped by 29 percent to Sh437 million in 2018.

Its nine-month net profit for 2019 stood at Sh393.7 million, a 42 percent growth from Sh276.7 million posted in preceding similar period.