Zenith Bank Plc, a Nigerian lender, said profit for the first-half ended June 30 more than doubled from the year earlier.
Net income surged to 21.3 billion naira ($141 million) compared with 9.85 billion naira a year earlier, the company said in a statement e-mailed by the Nigerian Stock Exchange in Lagos today. Revenue decreased to 96.9 billion naira from 111.1 billion naira.
Zenith is one of 14 out of Nigeria’s 24 lenders that passed an audit last year by the central bank. The Central Bank of Nigeria bailed out the other 10 with a 620 billion naira cash injection and fired the executives of eight of them after a debt crisis.
“The rescued banks have lost to stronger banks like Zenith,” Bismarck Rewane, Chief executive officer of Financial Derivatives Co. Ltd., a Lagos-based consultancy, said in an interview.
Zenith’s shares have risen 43 percent over the last year, closing trade 0.8 percent up at 12.5 naira as of 1:30 p.m. in Lagos. Spring Bank Plc, one of the banks that was bailed out, has lost 90 percent of its market value over the same period.
Jim Ovia, Zenith’s Chief executive Officer is due to retire at the end of this month, in compliance with a directive by the central bank that bank chiefs who have held office for 10 years should step down.
