November 12, (THEWILL) – Zenith Bank Plc, Nigeria’s largest financial services institution by market capitalisation (N1.04 trillion currently), is set for the N20 trillion assets mark by year-end amid strong balance sheet growth on massive revenue haul for the period ended September 30, 2023.
The Tier-1 financial services institution ended its 2023 nine months’ operations with total assets of N18.13 trillion against N11.34 trillion in the corresponding period of 2022, representing a 59.8 percent growth.
The figure was also a significant increase of 47.8 percent compared with the December 2022 record of N12.28 trillion.
“The bank could hit N20 trillion assets by year-end, given the trend in its growth trajectory since the year; and that will be a huge plus for the most capitalised financial services institution listed on the Nigerian Exchange,” said Abimbola Matthew, a financial analyst.
Commenting on the significance of strong assets quality, Professor of Finance and Accounts at the Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Muhammad Mainoma, had told THEWILL that strong assets base is strategic to the development of any business because an enterprise is handicapped if it trades with a lean balance sheet.
“Strong asset base signifies that a business is strategically positioned to take advantage of its environment. For a bank, there is no time that people will not need money. Once a business is focused and invests in areas that people always need, it will not lose. This explains the continuous growth (in assets) despite the difficult operating environment,” Mainoma, a former President of the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), had said.
Operating in an atmosphere of choking macroeconomic challenges, Zenith Bank declared a 114 percent increase in gross earnings from N620.57 billion in the nine months of 2022 to N1.32 trillion in the reporting period.
Unlike in the nine months of the previous year, when results followed the ‘normal’ growth trajectory, Zenith Bank Plc posted a pre-tax profit of N505.03 billion in the review period against N202.54 billion prior, representing a 149.3 percent growth.
The post-tax profit also rose by 149 percent to N434.17 billion in the reporting period from N174.33 billion in nine months of 2022.
The loan book grew significantly to N5.78 trillion compared to N3.88 trillion in the corresponding period, representing a 48.9 percent growth.
THEWILL had previously tracked Zenith Bank’s loan performance which showed that the NGX premium-listed financial services institution granted expansive facilities in loans and advances totaling N11.3 trillion in five year period: 2016-2020.
As a measure of customers’ confidence, Zenith also recorded a remarkable growth in customer deposit which jumped to N13.38 billion against N8.04 billion recorded in the nine months of 2022, representing a growth of 66.04 percent.
Like its peers, Zenith Bank harvested its lot from the forex windfall arising from the massive devaluation of the Naira by the CBN on June, 14, 2023. The group raked in N378.12 billion in nine months from forex revaluation against N11.14 billion in the corresponding period of 2022, representing a huge jump of 3,294 percent.
In a statement accompanying the financial statements, the group said that “Interest income increased because of the growth in risk assets as well as the effective pricing thereon.
“The non-interest income growth is largely driven by the revaluation gain due to the unification of exchange rates during the year. The cost-to-income ratio reduced from 55.8 percent in Q3 2022 to 37.8 percent in the current period.”
Zenith Bank closed its last trading day (Friday, November 10, 2023) at N33.05 per share on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX).
Zenith began the year with a share price of N24.00 and has since gained 37.7 per cent on that price valuation, ranking it 66th on the NGX in terms of year-to-date performance.
Zenith Bank is the 10th most traded stock on the Nigerian Exchange over the past three months (Aug 14 – Nov 10, 2023). The stock has traded a total volume of 928 million shares—in 22,930 deals—valued at NGN 31.2 billion over the period, with an average of 14.7 million traded shares per session.
Findings showed that a volume high of 75.4 million was achieved on September 4th, and a low of 4.34 million on October 19th, for the same period. The table below details the last 10 trading days of activity of Zenith Bank on the NGX.
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
