By Dipo Olowookere
One of the leading lenders in Nigeria, Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO), announced on Thursday that its gross earnings in the first six months of 2021 stood at N207.9 billion, 7.64 per cent lower than the N225.1 billion reported in the same period of 2020.
Analysis of the half-year results of the company by Business Post showed that this was largely impacted by a 15.5 per cent decline in the total revenue from its Nigerian operations to N152.5 billion from N180.4 billion in H1 2020 despite improvements from the contributions of its business operations in Rest of West Africa and East Africa.
In the period under review, GTCO, which used to operate at GTBank Plc, posted a net interest income of N107.1 billion compared with the N127.6 billion achieved a year ago and this was due to the lower interest income it had in the first half of this year.
However, the financial institution witnessed an uptick of 44.5 per cent in the fee and commission income to N38.3 billion from N26.5 billion mainly due to the increase in the income from account maintenance charges, electronic business, transfers-related charges and others.
Business Post observed that declines in bank charges and loan recovery expenses cut down the fee and commission costs of the bank to N1.4 billion in HY 2021 from N2.4 billion in the same period of last year, leaving the net fee and commission at N36.9 billion compared with N24.0 billion in the corresponding period of 2020.
With other income of N33.1 billion in H1 of 2021 versus N34.2 billion in H1 of 2020 and personnel expenses of N17.2 billion, lower than N17.5 billion a year ago, as well as others, GTCO ended June 30, 2021, with a profit before tax of N93.1 billion, 15.1 per cent lower than the N109.7 billion posted as at June 30, 2020.
Also, its profit after tax went down by 15.8 per cent to N79.4 billion from N94.3 billion, while the earnings per share (EPS) reduced to N2.79 from N3.32.
Despite the results, the board of GTCO has proposed the payment of 30 kobo interim dividend to shareholders. The qualification date for this is Monday, September 27, 2021, while the payment date is Tuesday, October 12, 2021.
