One out of the five executive directors of Nigeria’s Tier-1 lender GTBank Plc will be selected as a successor of the current Managing Director, Segun Agbaje, who will be completing his maximum 10 years tenure by 2021. Agbaje said during GTBank half-year (H1) 2020 investor earnings call session that the bank is working with a consulting firm in the United Kingdom.
“We are working with a consulting firm in the United Kingdom. We are looking at what we think the future would hold and what we think the Nigerian banking industry would look like,” Agbaje said.
“What we are looking for now is a Managing Director for Guaranty Trust Bank Nigeria. The process has started and I have always told people that we have five Executive Directors and so all of them are going through a process at the moment,” he said.
Agbaje also noted that that bank has gone far into its arrangement to have a Holding Company (HoldCo) structure by first-quarter (Q1) of 2021.
“At the end of the process which would end at the beginning of the fourth quarter (Q4), we will have a Managing Director for GTBank Nigeria. We are on track. Succession to GTBank Nigeria is well under control,” Agbaje said.
Agbaje said GTBank is working to secure all regulatory approvals from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and in other regions to achieve the HoldCo structure.
Guaranty Trust Bank plc recently released its audited financial results for the half-year (H1) ended June 30, 2020, to the Nigerian and London Stock Exchanges.
The half-year result reflects GTBank’s leading position as one of the best managed financial institutions in Africa.
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Operationally, GTBank will split it into three when the HoldCo structure is achieved. This will lead to having Guaranty Trust Bank Nigeria; Guaranty Trust Bank East Africa, almost operating as a region and Guaranty Trust Bank West Africa operating as a region.
The HoldCo will have other business units like Asset Management, a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA) and a payment company. Hopefully this week, GTBank would put in its application for final approval for the payment company, according to Agbaje.
“In terms of the work we are doing on it, the operational model for the HoldCo is set. You will have the centre, which is the controlling or holding company and you have a couple of business units. Operationally, what you would see is that in terms of HoldCo, we are going to do a one for one exchange, which means that the shares of GTBank would move up to the HoldCo”, the Managing Director said.
The bank’s loan book grew by 8.1percent from N1.502trillion recorded as at December 2019 to N1.624trillion in June 2020 and customer deposits increased by 18.5percent to N3.001trillion from N2.533trillion in December 2019. Profit before tax (PBT) closed at N109.7billion, representing a decrease of 5.2percent over N115.8billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2019.
The snapshot of the Group’s operating results for the H1 period shows Gross Earnings increased by 1.47 percent to N225.138billion as against N221.869billion in H1’19.
GTBank’s profit for the H1’20 period stood at N94.271billion, down by 4.9 percent from N99.133billion recorded in H1’19.
For the H1’20 period under review, directors of the bank proposed the payment of an interim dividend in the sum of 30 kobo per ordinary share on the issued capital of 29,431,179,224 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each.
The interim dividend valued at N8.83billion is payable to shareholders on the register of shareholding at the closure date.
The bank closed the half-year ended June 2020 with total assets of N4.511trillion and Shareholders’ Funds of N720.9billion. In terms of Asset quality, non-performing loan (NPL) ratio and Cost of Risk closed at 6.8percent and 0.4percent in June 2020 from 6.5percent and 0.3percent in December 2019 respectively.
Overall, asset quality remains stable with adequate coverage of 118.1percent, while Capital remains strong with CAR of 22.9percent. On the backdrop of this result, Return on Equity (ROAE) and Return on Assets (ROAA) stood at 26.8percent and 4.6percent respectively. The bank is proposing an interim dividend of 30kobo per ordinary share of 50 kobo each for period ended June 30, 2020.
