Imported User:
Diamond Bank Plc has posted 51.2 per cent growth in gross earnings during the first quarter ended March 2012 just as the bank’s repositioning drive and the completion of its balance sheet clean up has to impact on the financials.
In a statement made available to newsmen by the management, the bank‘s gross earnings rose from N20.3 billion in March 2011 to N30.7billion in March 2012.
While profit before tax increased by 316.7 per cent from N1.8 billion in March 2011 to N7.5 billion in March 2012, net interest income increased by 47.2 per cent from N12.3 billion in March 2011 to N18.1 billion in March 2012.
The bank’s Q1 2012 results also shows improvement in various areas of the group balance sheet with total assets and contingents crossing the N1.0 trillion mark to N1.1 trillion (it recorded N991 billion as at December 2011); net risk assets increasing by 10.8 per cent quarter on quarter to N440.3 billion (it recorded N397.4 billion in December 2011); and customer deposits increasing by 6.4 per cent quarter on quarter to N640.1 billion (it recorded N601.7 billion in December 2011) amongst others.
The Group Managing Director of the Bank, Dr. Alex Otti, noted that the first quarter results indicates the bank is on track towards making significant increment in its returns-on-investment and profit-before-tax in 2012.
“We have shown that our industry leading net interest margin is sustainable, and that our operating efficiency is robust and yielding strong operating performance. With our balance sheet clean-up now completed, our cost of risk is returning to acceptable levels allowing for our operating performance to trickle down to the bottom-line and translate into a return to profitability as demonstrated by our significant rise in year on year profit-before-tax at the end of the first quarter,” Otti said.
“We are delighted by these encouraging results and will continue to maintain focus on growing our operating profitability at acceptable risk levels that ensure we deliver growing returns to our shareholders in 2012 and the years ahead,” he further noted.
Otti disclosed that the bank is currently in negotiations with multilateral agencies to source Tier 2 capital in Q2 and the rest of 2012 adding that bank also has a high liquidity ratio of 46.1 per cent (CBN statutory minimum is 30 per cent).
