The Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) says its mortgage refinance loans balance increased to N24.02 billion within its financial year ended December 31, 2022, up from ₦21.10 billion 2021, representing about 13.8 percent growth within the period.
Similarly, the company’s net interest income increased by 9.8 percent from N5.02 billion in 2021 to N5.52 billion in 2022 while its profit before tax stands at ₦3.47 billion, an increase of 2.8 percent over the ₦3.39 billion recorded in 2021.
Charles Candide-Johnson, chairman of the company’s board of directors, who disclosed these at their 9th Annual General Meeting in Lagos on Wednesday, attributed the good financial performance amid significant macro-economic challenges to “sound capital and good governance practices.”
Kehinde Ogundimu, the company’s MD/CEO, assured shareholders that, as a non-bank financial institution, the management would continue to demonstrate resilience, recalling that, in the period under review, they experienced rising inflation, high interest rates, and foreign exchange pressures which, according to him, were compounded by high level fiscal deficit.
He said that, despite these challenges, their gross earnings increased by 2.06 percent from N9.91billion in 2021 to N10.11 billion in 2022, noting, however, that their expenses increased by 14.3 percent from N1.78 billion in 2021 to N2.04 billion in 2022 due to increased provisioning for impairment arising from increase in refinanced mortgage loan balance and taxes.
Ogundimu added that earnings per share also increased by 1.92 percent to N1.59 billion in 2022, up from N1.56 billion in 2021 while capital adequacy ratio improved from 84 percent in 2021 to 86 percent in 2022 which is far ahead of the regulatory requirement of 10 percent.
Major highlights of the day’s event were the approval of a dividend pay-out of ₦0.47k for every ordinary share held; ratification of the appointment of two directors; Aminu Umar-Sadiq and Armstrong Takang as Non-Executive Directors and the re-election of the retiring directors, namely Herbert Wigwe, Olufemi Johnson, and Charles Candide-Johnson.
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The election of George Oko-Eboh and Banjo Obaleye as members of the Statutory Audit Committee was also approved along with the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as the External Auditor of the company, thus replacing KPMG Professional Services, which had just retired in line with regulatory requirements having served the company for 10years.
The company looks forward to a more rewarding future, according to the chairman, who hoped that the measures taken by the new administration in the country would address the historic structural macro-economic issues bedeviling the economy such as multiple exchange rate regime, rising cost of debt-serving and deteriorating fiscal balance.
“These measures are painful now but, if properly implemented, they should improve the economy and the living standard of the people. Our expectation is that the Nigerian economy and, indeed, the housing sector where we operate will continue to expand in 2023, but at a subdued pace,” the chairman added
