United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) has posted a heft profit after tax (PAT) of N766.57 billion for the year ended December 31, 2024. UBA which is the first bank to release its audited earnings for the 2024 reporting year also declared a mouth-watering final dividend of N3 per share.
Expectedly, investors positioned themselves to partake in the dividend by buyinga total of 47,381,433 of the bank’s shares thereby pushing the price by N1.Investors extended their interest to other bank shares with the expectation that they will also post good result like UBA and also declare mouthwatering dividend. They therefore purchased 55,062,709 of Zenith Bank shares, 49,586,537 of FCMB shares, 37,234,441 of Accesscorp shares and 31,298,255 of Fidelity Bank shares. Consequently, the share prices of these banks all went up.
UBA also posted an impressive profit before tax. Its profit before tax for the year stood at N803.73 billion, up from N757.68 billion posted in 2023. Unlike in 2023 when it paid huge tax to government amounting to N149.98 billion and emerging as the highest tax payer among the publicly-held companies, it paid only N37.16 billion corporate income tax to the government in the year under review.
The bank’s balancesheet size witnessed impressive growth during the year under review. From N20.65 trillion it posted as total assets in 2023, the bank’s total assets hit a whopping N30.32 trillion in 2024. The bank’s total equity jumped from N2.03 trillion in 2023 to N3.42 trillion at the end of the 2024 reporting year.