Ecobank Transnational Incorporated on Monday published its First Quarter report for the period ended 31 March 2024.
The financial institution reported Gross Earnings of N904.15 billion for the 3 months period, up by 193.43% from N308.13 billion reported in Q1 2023.
Profit after tax of N140.9 billion was achieved for the period under review, up by 248.71% from N40.4 billion reported in Q1 2023.
With the shares outstanding of 24,592,619,000, the earnings per share of Ecobank stands at N5.73.
At the share price of N24.05, the P/E ratio of Ecobank stands at 4.20x with earnings yield of 23.82%.
Jeremy Awori, CEO of Ecobank Group, stated thus:
“We made meaningful progress in our Growth, Transformation, and Returns strategy, evidenced by revenue growth across all our businesses. We particularly focused on our Consumer, Commercial, and Payments businesses due to their promising growth opportunities.”
“The results for the quarter were strong and demonstrated the continued benefits of diversification and business growth despite uncertainty around rate cuts, persisting inflation, pressure on African currencies, muted economic output, and geopolitical risks. Our revenues increased by $13 million to $496 million. Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, the increase was even more robust at $114 million. Expenses, in constant currency, increased, mainly due to inflation. However, we maintained cost discipline, resulting in an improved cost-to-income ratio of 53.8%, with enhancements in our business lines. We delivered a profit before tax of $150 million, with an increase of $25 million, or $61 million at constant currency and generated a return on tangible shareholders’ equity (ROTE) of 29.5%,” Awori continued.
“Customer deposits increased by $3.9 billion at constant currency to $19.2 billion on continued deposit mobilisation efforts, improving the balance sheet’s liquidity. Given the challenging macroeconomic conditions, credit quality deteriorated slightly, as expected, and we continue to work appropriately with borrowers. Furthermore, we successfully repaid our $500 million 5-year Eurobond in mid-April, demonstrating confidence in us and our financing capabilities,” Awori continued.
“We are fully committed to improving our customers’ experiences by streamlining operations, upgrading our technology platforms, and simplifying and automating manual processes. We are investing in building and enhancing our customer value propositions as we grow our Consumer and Commercial franchises. These transformational initiatives are the bedrock of our GTR strategy, positioning us to serve our customers and communities well and deliver sustainable longterm returns to our shareholders, regardless of the economic cycle,” Awori added.
“We will continue to focus on banking fundamentals, running our day-to-day operations with discipline and efficiency, and doing what is right for our customers. We are confident in our strategy to deliver for our customers, employees, communities, shareholders, and broader stakeholders and will leave no stone unturned in driving our transformative initiatives,” Awori concluded.