By Dipo Olowookere
Despite the foreign exchange (FX) instability in Nigeria, slow economic growth, rising inflation, and a global recession on the horizon, VFD Group recorded an impressive performance in the third quarter of 2022.
Details of the company’s financial results showed that in the period under review, the gross earnings improved by 43 per cent to N10.6 billion from the N7.4 billion achieved in the third quarter of 2021.
According to the Executive Director of Finance of the firm, Mr Folajimi Adeleye, this double-digit growth in the income generated in Q3 of 2022 “can be attributed to growth in our interest-bearing assets.”
Further analysis of the financial statements by Business Post showed that VFD Group reported a 164 per cent growth in its interest income to N13.5 billion from N5.1 billion, while the investment income, however, declined by 31 per cent to N2.8 billion from N4.0 billion.
This joined forces with the 371 per cent surge in interest expense (N10.6 billion in Q3 2022 versus N2.3 billion in Q3 2021) to bring down the net interest income by 17 per cent to N5.7 billion from N6.9 billion.
Also, a significant jump in the fees expense weakened the net fees income by 762 per cent to -N690.3 million from N104.2 million.
According to Mr Adeleye, the management will “intensify measures to mitigate the impact of high inflation and promote better balance sheet efficiency by reducing our cost of funds, expanding our treasury trading activities, whilst seeking out ways to optimize cost.”
Despite the headwinds, the organisation increased its pre-tax profit by 37 per cent to N5.1 billion from N3.7 billion and expanded its assets by 88 per cent to N165.5 billion from N88.2 billion.
This development gladdened the heart of the company’s MD/CEO, Mr Nonso Okpala, who said VFD Group showed “outstanding resilience and delivered” a good performance amid the challenging “business environment.”
He assured that “going forward, we will continue to take advantage of the opportunities provided by a continually changing economic environment and leverage our ecosystem to promote efficiency, increase revenue and profitability, and ultimately maximize shareholders’ wealth.”
Adedapo Adesanya