The Star: Equity Bank Dividends: Equity Bank’s head James Mwangi will take home Sh. 416 million in dividend after the regional lender announced a net profit of Sh. 19.8 billion for the year ended December 31, 2018.
The bank’s profit for the year under review was five per cent more compared to the previous year when it posted Sh. 18.9 billion.
Following the results, the bank declared a dividend payout of Sh. 2 per share resulting into a total of Sh. 7.5 billion.
Mwangi is the highest individual shareholder in the bank with 5.52 per cent stake of its 3.77 billion shares.
The chief executive controls a total of 208 million shares in the bank with a market value of Sh. 8.93 billion.
His stake in the bank is now above that of Co-operatives Bank’s Gideon Muriuki who has reduced his take in the bank to 103 million shares from 110.3 million.
Muriuki’s shares have market value of 1.54 billion considering the share closed the day at Sh. 15.20 on NSE yesterday.
Mwangi, attributed the good performance to increased focus on non-funded income driven by adoption of digital banking systems.
He said non-interest income streams contributed to 38 per cent of the firm’s total revenue. Mwangi said that 93 per cent of the lenders loans were transacted through mobile phones compared to 79 per cent the previous year.
“This is the resilience we were pursuing to wade the headwinds of slow growth rate of the private sector,” Mwangi said during the release of the lenders full year results.
During the review period, the lender’s loan book grew six per cent to Sh. 294.8 billion from Sh. 278.1 billion while customer deposits grew 13 per cent to Sh. 421.6 billion from Sh. 373.1 billion reported the previous year.
Gross merchant commission grew by 30 per cent to Sh. 2.043 billion up from Sh. 1.576 billion the previous year. Fees and commissions from Diaspora remittances grew by a significant 169 per cent to Sh. 751million up from Sh. 279 million the previous.
The bank’s total assets grew nine per cent to Sh. 573.4 billion last year from Sh. 524.5 billion the previous year supported by 26 per cent government securities.