August 21, (THEWILL) – FBN Holdings Plc posted impressive results for its half year 2022 operations which reflect a growth trajectory that will excite the shareholders. This is coming after a period of heavy-footed performance on huge non-performing loans. The Group’s HY 2022 performance is reflective of its resilience and underpins the strategy to generate sustainable value for its stakeholders.
The Group recorded interest income of N226.35 billion during the review period as against N103.83 billion in the equivalent year, reflecting a 40.5 percent increase. Its net interest after impairment charges grew by 70.1 percent from N77.10 billion in HY 2021 to N131.20 billion in HY2022.
Profit before tax was N65.72 billion against N45.23 billion showing an increase of 45.3 percent which reflected on the profit after tax of N56.60 billion compared with N38.05 billion in the preceding period, which is an increase of 48.8 percent.
The balance sheet growth reflected on the Group’s robust assets performance during the period. Its total assets rose from N8.89 trillion as of December 31, 2021 to N9.48 trillion in the review period reflecting a growth of 6.63 percent. Loans and advances to customers grew from N2.88 billion in December 2021 to N3.38 billion in the review period. Deposit from customers, which reflect the customers’ confidence in the bank, rose to N6.3 billion from N5.84 billion, an increase of 7.8 percent.
Looking at the Group’s FY 2021 result, largely as a result of recoveries on bad loans which grew by 1155.4 percent, the Group reported a 99 percent increase in after-tax profit to N151. 08 billion in the Full Year 2021 period.
Profit before tax stood at N166.662 billion as against N83.703 billion in 2020, equally representing 99.11 percent growth. The profit was boosted by other operating income of N149.416 billion reported during the year as against N14.865 billion posted in 2020, accounting for an increase of 905.15percent.
The other operating income includes other income of N8.467 billion largely comprising of income made by the group from private banking services and gain on disposal of repossessed collateral. The major boost to both top-line and profit came from a mind-blowing surge in the amount of loan recovered, which ballooned by nearly twelvefold to N141 billion.
FBN Holdings had highlighted the recovery of a written-off credit availed to Jide Omokore-backed Atlantic Energy Limited as the principal driver. The tier one bank had rapidly reduced the bank’s non-performing loan portfolio in 2021, a development that had been a major boost in the bank’s quest to improve profitability and reinforce its leadership of the financial services industry in Nigeria.
Commenting on the Group’s FY 2021 result, the Group Managing Director, Nnamdi Okonkwo, said,“Our performance over the course of 2021 is reflective of the resilience of the Group and underpins our growth strategy to generate sustainable value for all our stakeholders. As a Group, we are acutely aware of the macroeconomic challenges facing businesses and remain focused on carefully navigating the environment through innovation and by putting our customers at the centre of our attention.”
“Highlighting revenue and profitability, the Group delivered a stellar performance growing gross revenue by 28.2 per cent to N757.3 billion and profit before tax by 99.1 per cent to N166.7 billion. The 30.0 per cent growth in loans and advances to N2.9 trillion and 16.2 percent growth in total asset to N8.9 trillion reaffirms our commitment to drive revenue and profitability as we complete the balance sheet clean-up.”
The National Co-ordinator, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Boniface Okezie, said the FBN Holdings HY 2022 has reassured shareholders that the foremost financial services institution is launching back to its leadership position in the industry. “We are happy with their performance. They are returning to their leadership position after years of challenging experience due mainly to huge chunk of non-performing loans.”
As observed by the Group, following years of strategic restructuring of the Bank’s balance sheet and operations, the Commercial Banking business is beginning to transition into a sustained growth phase delivering performance commensurate to the size of our business and capabilities of our people
“This performance was driven by a relentless focus on the needs of customers and improving the competitiveness of our offerings. We have sharpened our ‘Go To Market’ approach to better leverage the opportunities which our large scale provides in addition to becoming more relevant to our clients by improving our value propositions.
This performance is also in line with the Bank’s Quantum Profitability Leap agenda which seeks to ensure that we fully maximise the revenue generating capacity of our business to boost the bottom line and fulfil the expectations of all stakeholders in the business,” the bank said.
About the Author
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
