Zenith Bank Plc, one of Nigeria’s leading banks, released its unaudited financial results for Q1 2024, revealing a pre-tax profit of N320.194 billion.
This represents a notable 269.72% surge compared to the previous year. Additionally, this figure accounts for 40.23 % of the bank’s pre-tax profit in 2023.
This suggests that the bank is on track to surpass its 2023 financial achievements if this growth trend continues throughout the year.
This result is on the back of persistent macroeconomic challenges, including elevated inflation, interest rates, and exchange rate volatility.
These challenges have created a complex scenario, leading to both higher interest income and increased impairment losses.
A cursory review of the results reveals a combination of robust growth in interest income, driven significantly by lending activities, and substantial gains from trading income.
These factors collectively contributed to the group’s impressive gross earnings of N780.617 billion and a profit after tax of N258.341 billion in Q1.
The growth in interest income appears to be driven by a combination of expansion in loan portfolio and a rise in interest rates.
Notably, the group’s loans and advances, a key contributing factor, expanded by 31.94% to reach N8.66 trillion. Moreover, the benchmark interest rate experienced a substantial 600 basis point increase, climbing from 18.75% in Q4 2023 to 24.75% in Q1 2024.
This uptick likely played a role in the noteworthy growth observed in interest income derived from cash and cash equivalents, investment in government bonds and treasury bills as well as loans and advances to customers and banks.
However, it also disclosed an impairment loss of N55.972 billion, with 89% allocated to the allowance for impairment on loans and advances.
Nevertheless, despite this significant impairment, it seems to be contained, given that it accounts for only 18.26% of the bank’s net interest income of N306.450 billion.
This indicates that despite the notable impairment loss, the bank’s net interest income after impairment loss remains robust, standing at N250.478 billion. This figure reflects an impressive year-on-year increase of 122%.
The strong financial performance and growth trajectory may improve investor sentiment.
However, the bank is faced with the challenging task of meeting the CBN’s new capital requirement. Zenith Bank requires an additional N229 billion to meet the requirement, even with its robust and increasing retained earnings standing at N1.407 trillion.
The CBN’s new capital requirement appears to have unnerved investors, leading to a decline in the share price of banking stocks.
Zenith Bank has experienced a decrease in its share price of 10.48% year-to-date. This contrasts with the significant year-to-date gain of 61.04% in 2023, followed by a more modest gain of 15.14% in the first quarter of 2024.
