FBN Holdings Trades at 48.6% Discount to 52-Week High
FBN Holdings Plc declined marginally to N22.6 per share from N22.75 despite buying momentum on the Nigerian Exchange. This left the elephant market valuation at N811.2 billion. Ticker: FBNH is trading at a 48.58% discount to its 52 week high.
The finance services company’s stock peaked at N43.95 before making a degree U-turn in the second quarter of 2024 following an earnings delay and subsequent dividend cut.
In its latest update on Nigerian banks, Fitch excluded FBN Holdings from lenders whose outlooks were upgraded. FBN Holdings has surmounted various degrees of crisis, internal and external, in the recent past. FBN Holdings has seen the good, the bad and no so nice in the banking sector and internal play by various vested interest that hold its jugular for a pie.
In the first quarter, the group profit before tax grew strongly, up 325.2% year on year to N238.5 billion while profit after tax was up 315.8% to N208.1 billion. On the other side, the group assets quality weakened, causing higher impairment charges on its buckets of impaired credit to customers, or clients.
Impairment charge on credit losses grew significantly in the first quarter, up 153.9% year on year to N42.9 billion compared to N16.9 billion in Q1 2023. FBH Holdings recently recovered N400 billion loan to support defunct Heritage Bank Limited.
In contrast to Tier-1 record gains, FBN Holdings Plc reported a huge foreign exchange loss, up 3233.7% year on year to N94.8 billion compared to the foreign exchange gain of N3.0 billion in Q1 2023 driven by FX liabilities on balance sheet.
Analysts hope to see the group capital position strengthen ahead of deadline for recapitalisation. Analysts said they are not particularly pricing the elephant’s thick skin positive until recapitalisation programme program ends with particular interest in shareholding structure. Market Value of Top Big Banks Climbs to N4.6Trn or $3.15bn
