GTCO Plc released its second quarter audited financial statements showing a pre-tax profit of N494.5 billion nearly double the same profits reported a year earlier.

This represents the best second-quarter results reported thus far by any financial holding company or bank in Nigeria and follows a blistering N509.3 billion reported in the first quarter of the year.

In total, the bank has now reported a whopping N1 trillion in the first half of 2024.

Key Highlights – Q2 2024

• Interest Income: N336.2 billion, +176%
• Net Interest Income: N264.2 billion, +177%
• Loan Impairments: N33.9 billion, -79%
• Net Commission and Fees: N48.8 billion, +126%
• Other Income: N305.2 billion, -15%
• Total Operating Expenses: N102.7 billion, +48%
• Pre-tax profit: N494.4 billion, +95%
• Loans & Advances: N3.1 trillion, +34%
• Total Deposits: N10.2 trillion, +62%
• Net Assets: N2.3 trillion, +96%
• EPS: N16

Commentary: GTCO’s second-quarter result remains the highest reported by any commercial bank this year and is only second to the bank’s first-quarter results.

• A key driver of the performance was a growth in net interest income which rose by 177% to N264.2 billion.
• This is also the best net interest income reported by the bank for any quarter in its history, underscoring the performance of its risk assets in the period under review.
• To put this into context, GTCO reported a total net interest income of N259.3 billion in the whole of 2022.
• In total, the bank’s net interest income for the first half of the year sums up to about N491.5 billion (2023 FY: N436.6 billion) and was driven by loans to customers.
• A further breakdown shows that N361.9 billion was earned from its Nigerian operations and another N255.9 billion from outside the country.
• However, Nigeria contributed N843.1 billion to pre-tax profits.
• Included in the bank’s 6 months income of N630.2 billion is “Unrealized fair value gain on the financial instrument” of N493 billion and another N130.2 billion on “Unrealized Gain on Forward Transactions”, all connected to forex revaluation.
• This suggests that its N1 trillion pre-tax profits include over N520 billion of unrealized gains.
• The bank also reported gross commission and fees of N113.9 billion which was driven by e-business income of N32.5 billion and N16.3 billion in Commission on foreign exchange deals.
• Account maintenance charges also earned the bank another N15.6 billion.
• GTCO’s Corporate Banking Group remains its bread and butter contributing N521 billion to pre-tax profits with its retail division coming next with N298.6 billion (2023 H1: N63.2 billion).

GTCO also declared an interim dividend per share of N1 to its shareholders which is double the 50 kobo per share paid in the same period in 2023.

The bank share price closed at N45.45 per share down 0.11%.

The Chairman of BUA Cement, Alh. Abdul Samad Rabiu, yesterday recounted how cement dealers frustrated his company’s N3, 500/bag policy, last year.

He spoke at the 8th Annual General Meeting of the company in Abuja.

He said that while his company sold over a million tones of cement to dealers at N3, 500, per bag, with the intention that they would pass the benefits to end-users, the dealers sold a bag of cement to consumers at as high as N7000 and N8,000.

A ton is equal to 20 bags of 50 kg weight.

He said the company had to discontinue the policy as its intervention was not to subsidise dealers.

According to him, BUA Cement could not stop the dealers whom he said made huge profits from the high margin because the company had no control over prices in the open market.

He added that the Naira devaluation last year and the fuel subsidy removal also played roles in making the policy unsustainable.

Alh Rabiu said, “We were selling cement at N3,500 with the expectation that the dealers and the retailers would pass the benefits of the low price to the end-user customers.

“It’s such that whatever price you sell cement at, you pay. It doesn’t matter what happens if the price doubles or triples if it’s less than that. So, we didn’t actually have that price.

“So, a lot of the dealers took advantage of that policy. Rather than pass the low prices to the customers, they were selling at even double the price we sold to them.

“Some were selling at N7, 000 and 8 000 per bag. They made a lot of money from. the very high margin. I think we had sold more than a million tons, yes at N3,500 before we realised what the dealers were doing.”

“And then, because of the issues that Nigeria faced at the time about devaluation of the.Naira last year and the removal of fuel subsidy, we could not continue that policy.

“We wanted that price to stay at that level but dealers refused. So, we could not sustain that simply because we did not want to be in a situation where we are subsidizing dealers. We are subsidizing the dealers.

“So, I’m referring to the point where the FX rates, the exchange rates, from when we decided to sell it at N3,500, the rate was about N600 to maybe N1,800, N1,900 to the US Dollar. So, it became even more challenging and more difficult for us to actually sustain that price.”

The Chairman said, however, that the company had continued to work towards making that prices did not escalate at levels of the percentage increase of the Naira devaluation.

His words, “If you see the exchange rate then, and the exchange rate today, we see that cement is actually cheaper today than what it was last year.

“The reason being that if the dollar was up, so we see there is, the price of cement should actually be maybe N10,000 Naira per bag. The dollar exchange rate has actually been goin up you know. The price of cement, if you take the N4,000 that it was in the beginning of last year, at 4,000 .and today’s N6,000, it’s only 50% increase.

“So, we directly pushed to ensure that the price of cement is not getting higher than what it is today.

“But then again, you have areas where everything is dollar-dominated. Energy is the biggest cost. You know, it’s not correct.

“And our energy today is denominated in dollars. We buy gas to power our plants mainly. And gas is priced in dollars.”

The Chairman revealed that one of BUA’s plants monthly invoice, NGKW is about N15 billion Naira for one plant, one factory.

Maybe N16 billion monthly. It used to be N3 or N4 billion Naira. That is just one example.”

According to the financial report presented by the Board of the company, the company recorded a strong revenue growth of 27.4% to N460 billion (2022: N361 billion), resulting from its increasing market share.

However, with the devaluation of the Naira in June 2023, and its continued depreciation, as well as growing inflation, the Company experienced increasing price pressures which affected production costs, which increased by 39.5% to N276 billion (2022: N197.9 billion).

Within this period under review, a net foreign exchange loss of N70 billion (2022: N5.5 billion) was recorded, with N52.5 billion attributed to finance costs.

This was associated with the construction of an additional 3mmtpa lines at Obu and Sokoto, and the sum of N17.5 billion was attributed to foreign trade payables.

Despite these challenges, the Company reported a net profit after tax of N69.5 billion and declared a N2 dividend per share.

Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) Ltd says there were attempts to compromise its website domain but customers’ data were not affected.

On Wednesday, reports circulated that there was a compromise on the domain address of GTBank by suspected cyber criminals.

The attackers were said to have created another hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) layer of the website in an apparent ploy to steal customers’ data through phishing.

Phishing is a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses, worms, adware, or ransomware.

The reports had created panic among customers who thought their accounts could be affected.

However, responding to the development in a statement on Thursday, GTB said the “bank’s website has not been cloned and no instance of compromise of customer data”.

“Our attention has been drawn to reports in the media alleging that hackers have seized the Bank’s website, cloned, it, and intercepted customer data,” the bank said.

“While there was an isolated incident of an attempt to compromise our website domain, we would like to assure all our customers and stakeholders that the Bank’s website has not been cloned and that we do not store customer information on our website, and as such, there has been no instance of compromise of customer data.”

The bank also said a dedicated team of information security experts is “currently working round the clock to restore domain settings, and we can assure our customers that our website will be up shortly”.

GTB also urged all customers to disregard the claims in the media reports, assuring them of their “unwavering commitment to safeguarding customer data”.

In a report on June 13, SB Morgen (SBM) Intelligence, a geopolitical research firm, said the amount of money lost to fraud in Nigeria’s financial sector increased by N14.71 billion or 83 percent between 2019 and 2023.

SBM said the amount increased steadily from N2.96 billion to N17.67 billion within the reviewed period.