Stanchart pays GH¢1.84 dividend per share - Profit dips marginally
Standard Chartered Bank Ghana PLC has declared a dividend of GH¢1.84 per cent. This culminates into GH¢247.9 million and represents 23.2 per cent share of the bank’s total income for the year 2021.
The bank also recorded a revenue of GH¢1.07 billion as against the previous year’s figure of GH¢ 1.02 billion, representing a five per cent increase over 2020.
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That, shows a consistent five-year trend of profitable and sustainable growth at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 per cent.
The Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Mansa Nettey, announced this on June 2 at the bank’s 52nd annual general meeting in Accra.
Profit position
The bank posted a marginal drop in profit for the year 2021.
The bank's profit declined by nine per cent from GH¢478 million in 2020 to GH¢437 million in the year under review.
The development is as a result of the introduction of the Financial Sector Recovery Levy of five per cent on profit, according to the bank.
Meanwhile, the bank posted a profit before tax of GH¢ 695 million for the 2021 financial year.
This represents a three per cent increase over the previous year’s figure of GH¢675 million.
Explaining the bank’s financials she said; “Operating costs increased from GH¢288 million to GH¢382 million driven by a reversal of group support service charges that suppressed 2020 costs, investments in 2021 to ensure seamless work-from-home arrangement, and the impact of inflation on general operating costs.
This resulted in a profit before tax of GH¢695 million, a modest three per cent growth over 2020”.
Ms Nettey added that: “This growth trends gives us confidence that we are making good progress on our strategic priorities and are on track to achieve our medium to long-term objectives.”
She indicated that the broad-based revenue growth resulted in all business segments recording positive year-on-year (YoY) growth.
“Corporate, Commercial & Institutional Banking (CCIB) continued to be the highest revenue contributor with 70 per cent while Consumer, Private & Business Banking (CPBB) contributed 30 per cent,” she said.
Other results
With regard the bank’s loan recovery position, she said: “Loan impairment eased from a provision of GH¢59 million in 2020 to a recovery of GH¢6 million in 2021, bolstered by provision of releases on some legacy assets”.
On the bank’s balance sheet, the Stanchart CEO said that remained healthy and grew significantly by 26 per cent from GH¢8.0 billion 2020 to GH¢10.1 billion in 2021 adding that; “It is sufficiently diversified to support our continuous generation of attractive returns”.
Outlook
With regards to the outlook for the year, Ms Mansa said this year, the bank would build on second half growth momentum of 2021, “our strong underlying business performance, and the great strides made against our strategic priorities.
“While we expect the business environment to remain challenging due to macroeconomic instability, geo-political challenge and post pandemic effects, we will capitalise on the lessons learnt from previous economic cycles to help us balance the impact of the economic risks on our portfolio while pursuing sustainable growth opportunities in line with our core competencies, around sustainable finance and digitalisation, trade and wealth management,” she said.
Board chair’s report
The Board Chairman of the bank, Dr Emmanuel Oteng Kumah, said the bank’s continuous commitment to create shareholder value remained central to all long-term strategic decisions.
He said while uncertainties persisted in relation to COVID-19 and unpredictable and complicated geopolitical landscape, “our Ghanaian economy was also experiencing massive economic challenges with accelerating interest rates, rapid depreciation of local currency, rising inflation and cost of living including energy costs and mounting public sector debts burdens”.
That, he said, was a tough environment to operate, let alone succeed, however, his outfit “sees potential opportunities as the economy rebounds although gingerly and unpredictably.”
