Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
This morning of Monday, March 16, 2020, shareholders of Zenith Bank Plc with converge on Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja FCT for the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM).
At the gathering, participants will discuss the bank’s financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2019 and then approved the accounts. They will also vote on the dividend proposed by the company’s board.
On February 11, 2020, Zenith Bank declared a dividend of N2.50 for the 2019 fiscal year, with qualification date fixed for March 9 and closure of register on March 10 and payment date on March 16.
As it is, if the proposed cash reward is approved by the shareholders at today’s AGM, beneficiaries will receive the payments in their bank accounts before the close of work.
Recall that in the 2019 half year results, Zenith Bank gave a cash reward of 30 kobo per share to its shareholders as interim dividend. For the 2019 FY, the total dividend received by investors will amount to N2.80.
In the year under review, the lender posted a profit after tax of N208.8 billion, 8 percent higher than N193 billion recorded in the previous year, thereby becoming the first bank in Nigeria to declared a PAT of over N200 billion.
In the same vein, profit before tax increased by 5 percent, growing from N232 billion to N243 billion in the current year, arising from topline growth and continued focus on cost optimisation strategies. Cost-to-income ratio moderated from 49.3 percent to 48.8 percent.
Also, there was a growth in gross earnings, rising by 5 percent to N662.3 billion from N630.3 billion reported in the previous year. This growth was driven by the 29 percent increase in non-interest income from N179.9 billion in 2018 to N231.1 billion in 2019.
Fees on electronic products continues to grow significantly with a 108 percent year-on-year growth from N20.4 billion in 2018 to N42.5 billion in the current year. This is a validation of the bank’s retail transformation strategy which continues to deliver impressive results.
The drive for cheaper retail deposits coupled with the low interest yield environment helped reduce the cost of funding from 3.1 percent to 3.0 percent. However, this also affected net interest margin which reduced from 8.9 percent to 8.2 percent in the current year due to re-pricing of interest-bearing assets.
Zenith Bank increased its market share as it secured increased customer deposits across the corporate and retail space as deposits grew by 15 percent to close at N4.26 trillion, while the total assets also increased by 7 percent from N5.96 trillion to N6.35 trillion.
