By Adedapo Adesanya
Stanbic IBTC Holding Plc ended the first three months of the year with a profit after tax amounting to N20.6 billion, the company disclosed in its interim consolidated statement for the period ended March 31, 2020.
The Q1 2020 financial statements’ analysis showed that the net profit was N1.4 billion or 7.3 percent higher than the N19.2 billion achieved in the same period of 2019.
Similarly, the company recorded a profit before tax of N24.4 billion, 3.8 percent higher than N23.5 billion realized in the same period in 2019.
In the period under consideration, Stanbic IBTC said it paid N3.8 billion as income tax, lower than the N4.4 billion of the same time of last year, while its earnings per share rose to N1.91 from N1.81.
In Q1 2020, the financial institution had gross earnings of N61.4 billion as against N58.7 billion in Q1 2019, representing a 5 percent increase.
However, there was an 8 percent decline in the net interest income, as it reported N18.5 billion in the first three months of this year compared with N20.2 billion in the first three months of last year.
This happened because of a drop in its interest income to N27.5 billion from to N31.1 billion in Q1 amid a lesser interest expense of N8.9 billion as against N11.0 billion in Q1 19.
But the management improved Stanbic IBTC’s non-interest revenue for Q1 2020 by 20.7 percent to N32.6 billion from N27.0 billion on record in Q1 2019.
There was also an increase in its income before credit impairment charges, which amounted to N51.2 billion compared with N47.2 billion in the comparative period of last year. There was, however, a record of a net impairment loss on financial assets of N1.9 billion compared to a N1.4 billion profit in Q1’19.
Despite this, it resulted in a marginal 1.2 percent increase in income after credit impairment charges (N49.2 billion) for the period under review against N48.6 billion last year.
The Group was able to cut its operating expenses for the period under review to N24.8 billion from N25.1 billion in the first quarter of the preceding year. The OPEX comprises staff cost of N9.9 billion and other operating expenses of N14.9 billion for Q1 2020 compared to N9.2 billion and N15.9 billion in Q1 2019.
On the balance sheet, total assets from year-to-date rose by 26 percent to N2.4 trillion from N1.9 trillion as at December 31, 2019, while total liabilities increased to N2.1 trillion from N1.6 trillion in FY 2019.
