Guaranty Bank Trust Plc has declared a profit after tax of N196.85bn for the financial year ended December 31, 2019 as against N184.71bn reported in 2018, representing a growth of 6.6 per cent.
Based on the result, the lender declared a final dividend of N2.50 per share.
This is contained in the bank’s audited financial result released by the Nigerian Stock Exchange in Lagos.
Profit before tax stood at N231.7bn, from the N215.59bn posted in 2018, an increase of 7.5 per cent.
Its interest income dropped by 3.5 per cent during the period under review to N296.21bn from N306.96 billion in 2018.
Also, interest expense was down by 23.3 per cent to N64.84bn as against N84.530bn achieved in 2018.
Deposits from customers rose by 11.4 per cent to N2.53tn from N2.27tn, while net loans and advances grew by 19 per cent to N1.50tn from N1.26tn in 2018.
Total assets stood at N3.76tn, up by 14.3 per cent when compared with N3.29tn declared in the corresponding period of 2018.
According to the report, during the 2019 financial year, directors declared and paid an interim dividend of 30 kobo per ordinary share on the issued capital of 29,431,179,224 ordinary shares of 50 kobo, for the half-year period ended June 30, 2019.
Withholding tax was deducted at the time of payment. There was no income tax consequence on the bank as a result of the dividend pay-out, as the bank is only required to deduct this tax at source on behalf of tax authorities in Nigeria.
The tax so withheld represents advance payment of income tax by the recipient shareholders. The directors recommended the payment of a final dividend of N2.50 kobo per ordinary share of 50 kobo, bringing the total dividend for the financial year ended December 31, 2019 to N2.80 kobo, compared to N2.75 kobo per share paid in 2018.
GTB reported a profit before tax of N170.7bn for the nine months ended September 30, 2019, representing a growth of 3.9 per cent over N164.2bn recorded in the corresponding period of September 2018.
A review of the results showed positive performance across all financial indices, and reaffirmed the bank’s position as one of the most profitable and well managed financial institutions in Nigeria.
The bank’s loan book grew by 9.2 per cent from N1.262tn recorded as at December 2018 to N1.378tn in September 2019, while customers’ deposit rose by 5.1 per cent to N2.390tn from N2.274tn in December 2018.
The bank’s balance sheet remained resilient with total assets and shareholders’ funds closing at N3.519tn and N636.8bn respectively. Full impact capital adequacy aatio remained strong, closing at 23.6 per cent.
In terms of assets quality, NPL ratio and cost of risk improved to 5.6 per cent and 0.2 per cent in September 2019 from 7.3 per cent and 0.3 per cent in December 2018 respectively.
It said, “Complementing the improvement noted in NPLs and COR, we maintained adequate loan loss coverage of 95.2 per cent for lifetime credit impaired loans.
“On the backdrop of this result, post-tax return on equity closed at 32.3 Per cent while post-tax return on assets stood at 5.8 Per cent.”
