Dipo Olowookere
Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC, a member of Standard Bank Group, has released its audited financial results for the financial year to 31 December 2018 to the Nigerian Stock Exchange, which showed a strong liquidity position.
The results, released to the Exchange last Wednesday, showed the group grew its topline earnings for the financial year to N222.4 billion, compared with the N212.4 billion it achieved in the same period of 2017. Bottomline grew by 54% as profit after tax moved up to N74.4 billion compared with the N48.4 billion achieved in December 2017.
Other key performance indicators were equally impressive. The group’s total assets grew by 20% to N1,663.7 billion compared with the N1,386.4 billion in December 2017. Profit before taxation was N88.2 billion, up by 44% compared with the N61.2 billion in 2017. Customer deposit grew by 7% to N807.7 billion from N753.6 billion in the corresponding year.
Of note was the company’s ability to reduce its toxic assets appreciably. The gross non-performing loans decreased by 50% to N17.7 billion compared with N35.3 billion in 2017. This decrease impacted positively the gross non-performing loan to total loan ratio, which improved to 3.9%, well below the regulatory mark of 5%, as against the 8.6% recorded in 2017. The non-performing loans figure is even more impressive when viewed against the 14% (N458.9 billion in 2018 – N403.9 billion in 2017) increase in gross loans and advances achieved in the financial year.
The Chief Executive, Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC, Mr Yinka Sanni, says the balance sheet size was impacted by “growth in risk assets and financial investment portfolio,” a reflection of investment expertise and quality management, which saw its non-interest revenue rose by 15% to N102.6 billion from N89.2 billion in 2017.
According to Mr Sanni, “Strong growth in fees and commission income as well as write-backs, which resulted from recoveries made on previously written off loans and reversals on some non-performing loan, contributed to the strong showing.”
Stanbic IBTC said performances across its three divisions, Corporate and Investment Banking, Wealth Management businesses, and Personal & Business Banking, were strong and contributed to the turnover.
Mr Sanni assured “As a financial institution, we will continue to leverage on our universal financial services capability, unrelenting focus on cost control, digitization and client centricity to ensure that we continue to grow our capacity to provide incomparable high quality end-to-end financial solutions to our customers in a sustainable manner.”
