In the first quarter of 2022, United Bank for Africa made a profit of N44.5 billion before taxes.
The bank’s unaudited statistics for the first quarter ending March 31, 2022 showed increase across all income streams, according to a statement.
“Leveraging increase in both interest and non-interest income, the bank’s profit before tax rose to N44.5 billion in March 2022, up from N40.6 billion the previous year, while profit after tax was N41.5 billion,” it stated.
“As usual, UBA maintained its outstanding profitability, achieving an annualised return on average equity of 20.4%.”
The bank’s results, which were released to the Nigerian Stock Exchange, indicated that gross earnings increased by 18.3% from N155.4 billion in 2021 to N183.9 billion in 2022, while operational income increased by 18% from N106.6 billion in March 2021 to N125.9 billion in the year under review.
The bank’s total assets increased by 4.1 percent to N8.9 trillion in the period under review, compared to N8.5 trillion at the end of the 2021 financial year, while shareholders’ funds increased by 2.6 percent to N825.7 billion from N804.8 billion.
Mr Kennedy Uzoka, UBA’s Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, noted that the bank’s business model remained resilient despite the variety of global economic issues that characterized the first three months of the year.
Among the challenges he mentioned were the ongoing crisis between Russia and Ukraine, which has resulted in a massive supply shock, driving up commodity prices; and the hike in interest rates in most advanced countries to combat spiraling inflation, which has resulted in capital flow reversal from emerging and frontier markets.
“Despite these events,” Uzoka added, “we were able to leverage advantages from our big client base and wide geographic dispersion to boost profitability.”
“Our gross earnings increased by 18% to N183.9 billion, with our Nigerian operation accounting for 65% of the income and our activities in other countries accounting for the rest, demonstrating the diversification of our operations.”
“Our Q1’22 financial results suggest we are off to an excellent start,” Ugo Nwaghodoh, UBA’s Group Chief Finance Officer, remarked. I’m particularly delighted with how we used our balance sheet to develop sales and market share in a number of West African markets during the year.”
