Shareholders of Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc, a member of Standard Bank Group, have commended the financial institution for its outstanding financial performance for the 2018 financial year.
The company was also commended for its dividend payment of N1.50 per share, which was unanimously endorsed by the shareholders.
At the seventh Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the company in Lagos, shareholders noted the result under review was even more impressive considering the difficult operating environment in 2018.
Speaking on the 2018 result and the capital market performance of the Stanbic IBTC stock, a shareholder and President of Trustee Shareholders Association, Murktar Murktar, said it was a welcome development and a good value creation.
The shareholders, under the aegis of different shareholder groups, expressed their satisfaction with the board and management of the company for their adroit management of resources to ensure a positive performance. They assured of their support, going forward, to ensure the company consolidates on the performance in the 2019 financial year.
While thanking the shareholders for their commendation, Chief Executive, Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc, Mr Yinka Sanni, assured that the financial institution will not relent in its efforts to continue to deliver value to shareholders and other stakeholders.
“We will continue to leverage on our universal financial services capability, unrelenting focus on cost control, digitisation and ‘client-centricity’ while operating as an ethical organisation to ensure that we continue to grow our capacity to provide incomparable high quality end-to-end financial solutions to our customers in a sustainable manner and remain profitable as a group,” Sanni said.
Stanbic IBTC released its audited financial results for 2018 to the Nigerian Stock Exchange in March 2019, showing that the group grew its topline earnings for the financial year to N222.4 billion, compared with the N212.4 billion it achieved in the same period of 2017. Bottom-line grew by 54 per cent as profit after tax moved up to N74.4 billion compared with the N48.4 billion achieved in December 2017.
Other key performance indicators were equally impressive. The groups total assets grew by 20 per cent to N1,663.7 billion compared with the N1,386.4 billion in December 2017. Profit before taxation was N88.2 billion, up by 44 per cent compared with the N61.2 billion in 2017. Customer deposit grew by seven per cent to N807.7 billion from N753.6 billion in the corresponding year.
Sanni said the balance sheet size was impacted by growth in risk assets and financial investment portfolio, “a reflection of investment expertise and quality management,” which saw its non-interest revenue rose by 15 per cent to N102.6 billion from N89.2 billion in 2017. According to Sanni, Strong growth in fees and commission income as well as write-backs, which resulted from recoveries made on previously written off loans and reversals on some non-performing loan, contributed to the strong showing.”