By Dipo Olowookere
Last week, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) released its financial statements for the nine-month period ended September 30, 2020.
The financial status of the lender showed a notable decline in the profit for the period under consideration and according to the management of Ecobank, this was mainly due to the defunct Oceanic Bank, a financial institution it acquired in 2011.
Ecobank specifically said the profit was significantly impacted by the provision of N60.6 billion for goodwill for the acquisition of Oceanic Bank then led by Ms Cecelia Ibru.
A look at the financial statements of the bank by Business Post showed that in the first nine months of this year, Ecobank recorded a profit before tax and goodwill impairment of N95.1 billion in contrast to the N109.5 billion in the same period of 2019 and a profit before tax of N34.5 billion in contrast to the N109.5 billion a year earlier, while the profit after tax slumped to N10.3 billion from N78.8 billion.
However, the mid-level financial institution expressed optimism that “with the clean book aftermath of the full provisioning for Oceanic Bank, it will improve on its profitability for the year-end.”
A look at the top line of the results showed that gross earnings marginally increased in the period under review to N613.2 billion from N610.9 billion in the corresponding period of last year, with interest income growing to N397.4 billion from N372.5 billion and the interest expense dropping to N142.3 billion from N177.1 billion and the net interest income at N255.0 billion as against N195.5 billion a year ago.
During the period under review, the fee and commission income increased to N115.1 billion from N123.8 billion, while the fee and commission expense reduced to N8.8 billion from N9.9 billion, with the net trading income flat at N97.9 billion over the two comparative periods.
According to the financial statements, there was a 9 per cent decline in the non-interest revenue to N206.1 billion from N227.2 billion in 2019, while the operating income rose by 9 per cent to N461.2 billion from N422.6 billion.
The lender stated that its staff costs slightly increased to N129.7 billion from N129.0 billion last year, while the operating expenses moved up by 4 per cent to N292.4 billion from N280.5 billion.
On the balance sheet, the total assets nudged up by 9 per cent year-to-date to N9.430 trillion during the period under review as against N8.622 trillion in the full year of 2019, while the total liabilities increased to N8.722 trillion from N7.934 trillion in FY 2019.
Also, deposits from customers increased to N6.686 trillion from N5.925 trillion in December 2019, representing 13 per cent year-to-date growth, while the total equity went up by 3 per cent at N708.6 billion versus N697.7 billion.
