By Dipo Olowookere
In its tradition of rewarding shareholders, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has proposed a final dividend of 80 kobo for every ordinary share of 50 kobo held by its shareholders.
This cash reward is for the financial year ended December 31, 2019. The final dividend, which is subject to the affirmation of the shareholders at its Annual General Meeting (AGM), will bring the total dividend for the year to N1, as the bank had paid an interim dividend of 20 kobo earlier in the year.
Yesterday, the pan-African financial institution announced its audited results for the 2019 full-year, recording impressive growth across top and bottom lines.
According to the 2019 financials, the bank’s gross earnings grew by 13.3 percent to N559.8 billion from N494.0 billion in the prior year, while the total assets also grew significantly by 15.1 percent to an unprecedented N5.6 trillion for the year under review. This is the first time the bank’s gross earnings and assets will respectively cross the N500 billion and N5 trillion marks.
Notwithstanding the challenging business environment in Nigeria, the bank’s profit before tax was impressive at N111.3 billion, compared with N106.8 billion at the end of the 2018 financial year.
Furthermore, the profit after tax rose by 13.3 percent to N89.1 billion from N78.6 billion recorded in 2018, while on the cost side, operating expenses grew by 10.1 percent to N217.2 billion, as against N197.3 billion in 2018, well below average inflation rate within the period, a reflection of cost efficiency gains.
These results depict UBA’s deepening of its pan-African business strategy, given the growth in the contribution of its 19 African subsidiaries to the group’s net earnings and total assets. Ex-Nigeria operations’ contributed 46 percent to the pre-tax profit in the year under review.
In addition, lender has been deploying innovative lifestyle products to expand its market share across sub-Saharan Africa, leveraging its presence in the United Kingdom, United States of America and France, to build a true Africa’s Global Bank, facilitating trade and capital flows between Africa and the rest of the world.
UBA recorded a remarkable 20.2 percent growth (to N2.1 trillion) in loans to customers, whilst customer deposits increased by 14.4 percent to N3.8 trillion compared with N3.3 trillion recorded in the corresponding period of 2018.
This reflects increased customer confidence, enhanced customer experience, early wins from the ongoing business transformation programme and the deepening of its retail banking franchise.
