FBN HOLDINGS’S PROFIT DROPS DESPITE RISE IN EARNINGS

FBN Holdings has released its result for the financial year ended December 2013 with its profit before tax declining by 2.8 per cent to N91.3bn, from N93.9bn in 2012.

Similarly, the group’s profit after tax was down by eight per cent, falling to N70.6bn in 2013 from N76.8bn the previous year.

The results, however, showed that the group’s gross earnings rose by seven per cent in the year under review to N395.9bn from N370.2bn, while its net interest income at N230.1bn represented an increase of 1.5 per cent on the N226.6bn it declared the previous year.

The bank’s total assets and customer deposits rose by 19.9 per cent and 22.3 per cent, respectively.

While total assets rose to N3.9tn from N3.2tn, customer deposit advanced to N2.9tn from N2.4tn.

Highlights of FBN Holdings’ operations in 2013, according to the group, include the acquisition of ICB West Africa operations – in Ghana, The Gambia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

It added 77 new business locations, including 31 branches from the recently completed ICB acquisition, one of its subsidiaries, FBN Life Assurance Limited, completed the acquisition of Oasis Insurance in January this year.

A statement by the group, quoted the Chief Executive Officer, FBN Holdings, Mr. Bello Maccido, as saying the performance of the bank was affected by regulatory changes made by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

He said, “Our financial performance was impacted largely due to revised banking charges, while the increase in the cash reserve ratio impacted our overall performance as reflected through FirstBank, our flagship subsidiary.

“During 2013, while the group delivered a year-on-year rise in gross earnings of seven per cent to N395.9bn, profit before tax dipped marginally by three per cent to N91.3bn.”

Maccido, who explained that “the scale of the group’s business… creates highly-valuable scale benefits that are difficult to replicate,” stressed that its recent acquisitions and ongoing effort to strengthen the investment banking and asset management business meant it was on track to deliver on its promises to its stakeholders.

He said, “As we look ahead to the future, we will continue to enhance the contribution of the non-bank subsidiaries to the group through deepening market penetration in each of our business lines, investments in other growing sub-sectors of financial services and driving cross-sell and synergy realisation across the group and consolidating