Equity Bank Half Year 2017 Profit Slumps By 7.4%, Lays Off 66% of South Sudan Staff

Equity Group Holdings (Stock; EQTY), a Nairobi Securities Exchange listed financial services conglomerate has released its Half Year 2017 financial performance with Profit Before Tax declining by 6.6% to Sh 13.3 Billion while Profit After Tax declined by 7.4% to Sh 9.3 Billion from.

The fall was due to a 11.8% decline in total interest income to Sh 23 Billion while total interest expenses grew by 4.1% to Sh 5.06 Billion. Net interest income fell massively by 15.5% to Sh 17.94 Billion.

Interest income from government investments grew by 115.8% as the lender increased its investment in Government securities by 58% to Sh 115.6 Billion from Sh 78.03 Billion reported in the same period in 2016.

Total assets increased by 14% to Sh 505 Billion on the increased investment in Government securities. Shareholder funds were up 14 % to Sh 86 Billion from Sh 75.4 Billion as retained earnings went up by a small margin to Sh 69.8 Billion.

Net loans and advances fell slightly to Sh 265 Billion from Sh 269 Billion as customer deposits increased by 13.6% to Sh 362.8 Billion.

Non-funded income was up by a very impressive 20% to Sh 13 Billion as commissions from mobile banking transactions increased to Sh 650 Million from Sh 149 Million in the same period last year. Commissions from merchants was up by 12% to Sh 580 Million while revenues from agency banking was up 27% to Sh 425 Million.

Operating Expenses were down by 1.3% to Sh 17.6 Billion on the back of a 3.5% and 15.68%
decline in loan loss provision and employee costs.

Profit before Tax in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and DRC increased by 5%, 139%, 75%, 55% and 20% in that order.

The bank also noted that it had closed 7 of its branches in South Sudan. This resulted into the laying off of 200 of its 300 workers in the troubled country. The Bank’s CEO however said they expected normalcy to return in South Sudan in the near future.

No interim dividend was declared.

RELATED; Coop Bank HY 2017 Net Profit Declines 10% as account holders hit 6.53M

Share Price Performance

Since February this Year, Equity’s Share Price is up by a mouth watering 83.38% from Sh 23.48 percent to Tuesday’s closing price of Sh 43.00. On a Year-to-date basis, the stock is up 43.15 percent as shown in the chart below.