The full year financial report of FBNH for the year ended December 2017 reveals that the group advanced by 2.34% in gross earnings closing at N595.4 billion from the previous close of N581.8 billion in 2016.
Profit before Tax (PBT), grew by 147.62% closing at N56 billion from N22.9 billion. The Profit after Tax (PAT) grew by 179% closing at N47 billion from the previous close of 17 billion.
For the period under review, the EPS of FBNH stood at N1.21 from N0.39 of 2016.
Net Interest Income for the period grew by 8.89 percent from ₦304.442billion 2016, to ₦331.522 billion.
The group in the period paid ₦150.424billion on impairment charges, 33.45 percent down from the ₦226.037billion recorded in 2016. Net interest income after impairment charge for credit losses came to ₦181.098 billion from ₦78.405 billion.
The insurance arm of the Holding firm grossed ₦12.973 billion as premium, being 35.05 percent more than the ₦9.606 billion in 2016, out of which it ceded ₦2.739 billion to its reinsurers, up from ₦1.175 billion of the previous year, resulting in net insurance premium revenue of ₦10.234bn, up from ₦8.431bn.
Fee and commission income for the period grew by 4.31 percent from ₦71.360 billion in 2016 to ₦74.453 billion in 2017.
Fee and commission expenses grew by 9.43 percent from ₦11.073 billion to ₦12.117 billion.
Net gains on foreign exchange declined significantly by 76.36 percent, closing at N21.062 billion from ₦89.077 billion in 2016.
Net gains on investment securities was ₦2.610 billion, down from ₦3.930 billion of 2016.
Dividend income appreciated by 128.87 percent to ₦2.053 billion from ₦897million of 2016
Operating expenses grew by 10.39 percent to ₦132.496 billion from ₦120.030 billion of the corresponding year; while operating profit advanced by 145.75 percent settling at N56.395 billion from N22, 948 billion of the corresponding year.
According to Mr. UK Eke, MFR, the Group Managing Director, 2017 was a better year than 2016. However 2017 also was a bit challenging as the firm operated under recession.
In his words “The issues that we have to deal with were largely around the impairment at the commercial bank where we took a hefty N150 billion impairment charge. But that is coming down because for 2016 it was N226 billion, so that tells you that we have pretty much resolved most of the issues we have to deal with for 2016.