United Bank for Africa records N153 billion profit before tax

United Bank for Africa records N153 billion profit before tax – United Bank for Africa (UBA), grew its Profit Before Tax (PBT) by 20.3 per cent to N153.1 billion in 2021 compared to N127.3 billion at the end of the 2020 financial year.

These figures were made public at the bank’s 60th Annual General Meeting in Abuja yesterday. In the bank’s annual reports, it was also stated that UBA’s Profit After Tax (PAT) rose by 8.7 per cent to N118.7 billion in 2021, compared to N109.2 billion recorded the previous year.

As a result of the performance, the bank proposed a final dividend of 80 kobo for every ordinary share of 50 kobo for the financial year ended December 31, 2021, thus bringing the total dividend for the year to N1.00 as the bank had earlier paid an interim dividend of 20 kobo.

UBA Chairman, Tony Elumelu assured shareholders and investors of the bank’s “unwavering commitment to sustain its current growth trajectory, pointing out that the bank’s efforts at business diversification across Africa and beyond will be vigorously pursued.’’

Elumelu said the bank’s strategic investment decisions over the past few years have “translated to huge returns for its investors, despite the challenging business environment witnessed in the last two years.”

He said: “I am proud of how as a Group, we have been able to further consolidate on the new capabilities we have built, novel customer solutions we have deployed, efficiency gains recorded and the growth prospects we have leveraged from a recovering world.”

Whilst expressing his delight to shareholders and customers who have stood with UBA for almost eight decades, Elumelu expressed confidence in the “bank’s capacity to sustain this momentum especially as economic activities recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our goal is to continue to build strong brand loyalty with our customers and create additional value for our shareholders, whose underlying support has positioned UBA for continued growth,” the Chairman noted.

UBA’s Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Kennedy Uzoka, who went into details about the improved performance of the bank’s subsidiaries in the financial year under consideration, said, “we are happy that the global community recognises the role our group is playing in the transformation of the African economic landscape through innovative and customer focused banking services.”

He pointed out that the bank’s business in the United Kingdom had specifically witnessed remarkable expansion, disclosing that “as from July 2021, UBA UK started making profit, and even to date, they are still doing well, and the same can be said for many of our African subsidiaries. The truth is that we are driven by the opportunities and potential in each of the geographies that we invested in, and we are happy with what we have achieved so far”.