Fidelity Bank Plc has declared a profit after tax of N4.003bn for the first quarter of 2015, a 5.6 per cent increase on the N3.790bn it posted as PAT for the same period of 2014.
In a filing with the Nigerian Stock Exchange the lender reported a 12.5 per cent rise in gross earnings year-on-year. Its gross earnings rose from N30.956bn in Q1 2014 to N34.829bn in the review period.
Also up were its profit before tax, which edged up by 5.6 per cent to N4.710bn from N4.459bn, and earnings per share that jumped by 5.8 per cent from 52 kobo to 55 kobo.
Total assets for the bank rose by 14.7 per cent year-on-year from N1.043tn to N1.196tn.
Analysts at FBN Capital Research in their review of the results noted that if lender’s positive N956m result on the other comprehensive income line was included it would amount to a PAT growth of 27 per cent year-on-year.
Excluding the figure, they noted that PAT was up by just six per cent y/y with the profit before tax growing at the same rate.
In terms of the contributions of the different revenue lines, they said, “Non-interest income was the standout performer, with a strong 65 per cent y/y growth to N7.7bn. We suspect that trading gains probably drove the strong non-interest income result since fees and commissions grew slower (+11 per cent y/y) than the total.
“In contrast, funding income was down by four per cent y/y to N12.4bn. The former more than offset the latter such that profit before provisions increased by 14 per cent y/y to N20.1bn. This teens growth was partly offset by negative trends in loan loss provisions (+154 per cent y/y) and opex (+13 per cent y/y), leading to the mid single-digit growth in PBT.”
They explained that sequentially, PBT was up by 122 per cent quarter-on-quarter because both provisions (-58 per cent q/q) and opex (-13 per cent q/q) declined markedly, more than offsetting a modest decline of -4.5 per cent q/q in profit before provisions.
For the financial year, they said, “Our full year 2015E published PBT forecast is N16.7bn; this is in line with consensus. This forecast supports our ROAE assumption of 8.1 per cent. Management’s guidance is 10 per cent.
“On the back of the Q1 results, we would not expect any material changes to consensus estimates.”
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