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Diamond Bank posts N22billion profit

By on April 30, 2013

DIAMOND Bank Plc has grown its profit after tax (PAT) for the 2012 financial year by over 250 per cent to N22.1 billion as against theN13.9 billion loss achieved in 2011.

The bank’s profit before tax (PBT) also rose to N27.5 billion, which is a complete turnaround from the loss before tax of N18.0 billion recorded in 2011.

Its  PBT was achieved from gross earnings of N138.8 billion, an increase of 35 per cent over N102.7 billion earned in the previous year.

The PAT resulted in earnings per share of 159k for the year.

According to the Group Managing Director, Dr. Alex Otti, “2012 performance is a reflection of our collective decision to place the Bank on a growth pedestal towards becoming one of the leading financial institutions in Nigeria having achieved N1 trillion balance sheet size. The year saw us building on our strong reputation for customer focus, innovative product development and quality service, thus returning to profitability after the cleanup exercise in 2011. These principles will continue to steer our growth on an impressive and sustainable path”.

“Leveraging on these principles and the focused development of our service delivery infrastructure, systems and technology, we have gained momentum and scale in all our markets. Our strong balance sheet, large customer base and solid risk management framework have helped us to build a robust institution capable of guaranteeing quality growth,” he added.

On the strength of the bank’s impressive performance, the market was expecting payment of dividend to shareholders.

However, in view of the current efforts towards capital injection, dividend payment in a year that the bank will be raising additional capital will not be advised.

In line with its medium term capital raising program following the approval of its shareholders to raise capital of $750 million at the last Yearly General Meeting (YGM) that held on the 31st of May 2012, the bank is seeking an amendment to this approval in today’s YGM.

According to Management, the proposed amendment is necessary in order to expand the capital raising options to include rights issue of equity or debt.

In 2012, the Bank raised debt capital of about $200 million out of the $750 million, principally from two Development Finance Institutions which included a convertible debt from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank.

 

 

[Guardian]