Unity Bank records N78.8 billion earnings, N4.6 billion profit

Unity Bank Plc posted gross earnings of N78.8 billion and a Profit After Tax (PAT) of N4.6 billion in its operations last year, according to the just released audited financial result of the financial institution.

The performance was against the gross earnings of N77 billion and PAT of N10.6 billion achieved in 2014.

According to the report, the bank’s performance was achieved despite the challenging operating environment characterised by a continued lull in the economic activities in the country, as well as major regulatory headwinds that impacted earnings during the year under review, especially the Treasury Single Account phenomenon.

The bank’s performance was attributed to its repositioning strategy, in which, its assets were critically stress-tested, resulting in major impairment charges of N27 billion for 2015 as against N17 billion in 2014, representing a growth of N10 billion on asset charge over the previous year.

The release from the bank disclosed that the new management inherited huge legacy non performing loans from the general commerce and manufacturing subsectors and believes that the impairment charge in 2015 was necessary in order to give new breath of life to the institution.

“The enormous tasks embarked upon by the new management is to position the bank for proper clean-up and de-risking of its balance sheet, thus paving way for sustainable business in its overall transformation initiatives.

“The bank also grew its assets by seven per cent from N413 billion in 2014 to N443 billion in 2015, amid shrinking economic indicators, measurement and regulatory policies that affected deposit portfolio during the year under review,” the statement added.

The Managing Director/Chief Executiive Officer of the financial institution, Mrs. Tomi Somefun noted that “with the bank’s repositioning efforts and consistent focus to tap into the emerging opportunities in the enlarged economic space within Nigeria, Unity Bank is poised to deliver quality banking service to emerging sectors in Retail/SME, commercial and the agricultural value chain.

“The bank is building strong infrastructure for retail banking and attracting youths for its sustainable banking business by developing customer-centric products to meet the needs of its esteemed customers and build new clientele base.

“With the bank’s capital raising exercise, the year ahead is bright as the effects of the ongoing transformation initiatives will surely consolidate.”

The bank relocated its Head office to Lagos from Abuja in March.