Business

Union, Wema disappoint investors

Published

8 years ago

May 11, 2018

By Odunewu Segun

Tier two lenders, Wema Bank and Union Bank failed to put smiles on the faces of their investors during the week as both did not declare any dividends for the 2017 financial year.

At its Annual General Meeting recently, Group Managing Director of Wema Bank, Segun Oloketuyi assured its disappointed investors that the bank would reward them with dividends soon.

“We are now in the final stage of our three-pronged strategy; stabilise the bank (2009 2012), reposition the bank (2013-2017) and grow the Bank (2017 and beyond).

Wema will be re-opening the 2nd series of its N50 billion debt issuance program. This should commence from the second quarter of the year.

Wema bank closed at N 0.84 in yesterday’s NSE session down 4.55%. Year to date, the stock is up 61.54%.

Results for the first quarter ended March 2018, show the bank recorded N12. 6 billion as interest income and a profit before tax of N764 million.

Union Bank on the hand recorded a dip in its profits by 4.5 per cent in the financial statements for the year ended December 2017.

Gross Earnings rose from N129 billion in 2016 to N163 billion in 2017. This represents a 26.3% increase year on year. Profit Before Tax for the bank dropped slightly from N15.7 billion in 2016 to N15.5 billion in 2017.This represents a 1.2% decline year on year.

Profit after tax also dropped from N15.3 billion in 2016 to N14.6 billion in 2017. This represents a 4.5% decline year on year.

Earnings per share also dropped from N0.92 in 2016 to N0.81 in 2017. This amounts to a 11.9% fall year on year.

Union Bank closed at N6.75 in yesterday’s trading session, down 0.75%. The bank made N163 billion as gross earnings.

The bank did not declare any dividends for the 2017 financial year.