Goddy Egene
United Capital Plc, Nigeria’s investment banking firm and a Pan-African financial and investment services group has recorded a revenue of N3.24 billion and profit before tax (PBT) of N1.99 billion for the half year ended June 30, 2019.
A breakdown of the results showed that revenue in second quarter (Q2) of 2019, compared to first quarter (1Q) in 2019 grew by 23 per cent from N1.45 billion to N1.7billion. But compared to Q2 in 2018, revenue was down 1.1 per cent from N1.81 billion to N1.79 billion.
PBT grew by 58 per cent from N0.77billion in Q1, to N1.21billion in Q2 2019, showing a significant improvement of 27 per cent compared to 2018 Q2 performance (N0.96billion). Profit after tax (PAT) Q2 2019 PAT of N1.01billion represents a 58 per cent growth over Q1 2019 PAT of N0.64billion. This compared to 2018 Q2 performance (N0.80billion), indicating a significant improvement of 27 per cent.
Commenting on the performance, the Group Chief Executive Officer, United Capital Plc, Mr. Mr. Peter Ashade said: “We did deliver on our promise to improve performance in Q2 2019 and as can be gleaned from our numbers, we had a good outing in the quarter under review as Q2 2019 PBT grew by 27 per cent year-on-year on the back of the reduction in operating expenses which was the result of the various strategic initiative that we embarked on in the last quarter which was to reduce cost and increase our top line as a way of furthering our efficiency drive. Unarguably, the global economy is still recovering from the lingering contagion effect of the United States-China trade war and the Brexit saga, while we on the local scene are activities still trying to pick up steam following the 2019 general election and a series of political and economic activities that we saw during the first quarter of 2019”.
He explained that as the elected government of various states begin to stabilise and inaugurate their cabinets, “we believe the pace of bond and commercial paper issuance would pick up and further increase our advisory fees there from more than what we saw in Q2 2019. Our financial advisory fee ramped up 13 per cent year-on-year. Beyond this, the group would be looking to adopt some initiatives which we believe would help improve our top lines and consequently improve our profitability.”
