Access Holdings shareholders approve N46.21bn final dividend for 2022
By Philemon Adedeji
Access Holdings plc (the company) a non operating financial holding company licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), held its 1st Annual General Meeting (AGM), yesterday at the Federal palace hotel in Lagos, where all resolutions were approved by the shareholders.
At the AGM, the Shareholders approved N1.30 Kobo per ordinary share, this in addition to the interim dividend of 50 Kobo per ordinary shares.
In 2022 financial year, the group recorded a Profit Before Tax of N167.7 billion for the year, as total assets increased impressively by 28.2 per cent from N11.7 trillion in December 2021 to N15.0 trillion in December 2022.
Deposits from customers grew by 33 per cent from N6.9 trillion in 2021 to N9.3 trillion in 2022.Our shareholders equity also grew by 17 per cent from N1.05 trillion in 2021 to N1.23 trillion in 2022. Despite the tough macro-economic conditions , with inflation at over 20 per cent, we aggressively drove down our cost to income ratio despite ongoing business expansion.
The Group Chairman of Access Holdings, Bababode Osunkoya, commented that 2022 was a year of unprecedented challenges for Access holdings plc and for society more broadly.
“As a company we continued to demonstrate our resilience, our ability and commitment to support customers, clients and wider stakeholders in ever changing economic conditions.”
According to him, the year saw the outbreak of the Ukraine -Russia war in Europe, climate disasters, continuing effects of COVID-19 which posed a great threat in large parts of the world and an unexpected Sovereign debt issue in Ghana. These resulted in the partial reeling -in of globalisation and considerable pressure on households and businesses from rising inflation.
“In times like this, it is good to be able to report that Access Holdings plc remains financially and operationally resilient despite the significant macroeconomic headwinds in 2022. There is a high level of consciousness from the board that there is much work ahead.”
He added that “transitioning into a Non-operating financial the group has approximately 27,000 employees, and as I have mentioned earlier, I have always been humbled by the dedication of colleagues to the pursuit of our purpose and by the way they embrace the societal and climatic challenges experience by all.
“In conclusion, the board and Management’s go to our shareholders, customers and all who have stood by us over the years. With your support, we continue to build a world class, sustainable institution underpinned by strong ethical and governance standards. We intend to maintaine these standards as we progress further towards becoming one of the top five financial services provider in the next 6 years.”
Also, Group Chief Executive of Access Holdings, Herbert Wigwe said post COVID-19 pandemic, economists had anticipated that inflation will be transitory, instead Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked Europe’s worst energy crisis since the 1970s. Inflation, reinforced by war , disruption of supply chains, and the continued impact of climate change, became some of the world’s biggest macroeconomic concerns.
“In a year with significant inflationary pressures and tighter Central Bank monetary policies globally, we drove our growth strategy, supported our customers through the challenges they faced, whilst creating significant value for shareholders. In Nigeria we saw the Monetary Policy Rate increased from 11.5 per cent in Q1 2022 to 16.5 per cent by the end of 2022 and 18.0 per cent in March 2023, as fight to stem inflation continued.
“The FX challenges worsened in 2022 and this saw the gap between the parallel market and the NAFEX rate grow by as much as N400:$1 in Q3 2022, before pulling back slightly. Despite these multiple challenges, we made headway in deepening relationships with multinational clients and corporates, boosting loyalty and customers acquisition across many countries.
“The Monetary normalisation process instituted by many Central Banks is expected to continue across many countries in 2023, leading to a gradual slowdown in the global economic activity.”
Speaking on operational business review, he said, “Our success on our strategic plan largely focused around becoming the leading bank in Nigeria between 2018-2022. This is even more remarkable as this period included the COVID-19 pandemic, showing the strength of our business model- our customers focus, scale, diversification – and progress we continue to make in our business transformation, while maintaining an ongoing disciplined approach to capital allocation.
“We have seen huge structural changes across the world over the past decade, driven by changing regulations, technology, competitive landscape and most importantly in the case of Africa, significantly changes in demographics.
“In conclusion, to improve our operational efficiency, we will continue to deploy technologies at scale in our organisation. Our cloud adoption rate, which is the percentage of our technology services on the private or public cloud, has increased consistently over the years. Today we have 80 per cent of our services running on cloud infrastructure.”
