By Dipo Olowookere
One of the tier-two banks operating in Nigeria, Sterling Bank Plc, has released its financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2017.
In the results, the lender posted a 65 percent increase in its post-tax profit, closing at N8.5 billion in the period under review against N5.2 billion in the corresponding year.
Also, the pre-tax profit of the bank was N8.6 billion in the 2017 business year compared with N6 billion in the 2016 financial year.
The financial institution revealed in the financial documents released to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday that its gross revenue appreciated in the period by 19.8 percent to N133.5 billion to N111.4 billion in 2016.
The lender said it realized N3.5 billion from foreign exchange trading compared with N1.1 billion in 2016, while N1.8 billion was made from treasury bills in the year versus N2.4 billion in the previous year.
Business Post gathered from the financial statements that Sterling Bank brought down its non-performing loans to 6.2 percent in 2017 from 9.9 percent in 2016.
The bank’s total assets as at December 31, 2017 stood at N1.1 trillion in contrast to N834.2 billion as at December 31, 2016, while the total liabilities closed at N969.3 billion last year versus N748.5 billion two years ago.
Meanwhile, the board of Sterling Bank Plc has proposed the payment of dividend to shareholders for the year 2017.
In dividend notice released today, the bank declared a dividend of 2 kobo for every share of 50 kobo each with payment to be made on May 17, 2018, the same day fixed for the Annual General Meeting (AGM).
