Guaranty Trust Bank plc last Fri¬day released its audited financial results for the year ended December 31, 2013 to the Nigerian and London Stock Exchanges.
The results show a strong and positive perfor¬mance across all financial indices and also affirm the bank’s position as one of the most profitable finan¬cial services provider in Nigeria. In terms of value creation, GTBank main¬tained its top position in the industry with pre-tax Return of Equity (ROE) of 34.9% and pre-tax Return on Asset (ROA) of 5.6%.
A glance through the numbers reveals an impressive 28.6% growth in loan book from N783.91bn in 2012 to N1.01tn in 2013 while customer’s depos¬its grew by a remarkable 24.3% from N1.15tn in 2012 to N1.43tn in 2013.
Consequently, the group closed the 2013 fi¬nancial year with a bal¬ance sheet size in excess of N2tn while shareholders’ equity increased by 17.9% from N281.83bn in 2012 to N332.35bn in the period under review. Risk man¬agement framework in the bank remains very strong as Non-Performing Loans (NPL) ratio decreased to 3.58% in 2013 from 3.75% in the comparative period of 2012. Segun Agbaje managing director/CEO Guar¬anty Trust Bank plc while commenting on the result said “As a growing fran¬chise and inspite of the regulatory headwinds, our Bank has posted respect¬able results that reaffirm our reputation as a market leader and a highly ethi¬cal financial institution. We have maintained our cost-leadership position as typified by the cost-to-income ratio (2013: 43.5%; 2012:43.1%) among peers year-on-year.”
Agbaje further noted that “with this perfor¬mance, we will maintain our commitment to maxi¬mizing shareholder value with a proposed dividend pay-out of N1.70 per share, an increase of 10% over the N1.55 paid in 2012 and a share price appre¬ciation of 17% in 2013. Our acquisition of Fina Bank Limited, a Kenyan bank with significant business footprint in Rwanda and Uganda gives us the op¬portunity to commence business in three East Af¬rican countries via the ac¬quisition of one bank. This will give us great mileage and an opportunity to leverage our brand equity. We hope to further tap into the growth potentials of emerging African econ¬omies thus bringing us closer to our philosophy of being ‘A proudly African and truly international’ financial brand”.
