Africa Prudential profit after tax drops to N1.68bn in 2019

Africa Prudential Plc, a share registration and investor services firm, on Tuesday announced a profit after tax of N1.68 billion for the financial year ended Dec. 31, 2019.

The company’s audited result released by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) showed that the profit after tax was lower when compared with N1.95 billion achieved in 2018.

Also, the profit before tax dropped by 0.2 per cent to N2.39 billion in contrast with N2.49 billion posted in the corresponding period of 2018.

Its gross revenue stood at N3.90 billion against N4.49 billion in 2018, indicating a drop of 13 per cent.

The company explained that the reduction was on the back of 89 per cent drop in interest paid on borrowings which affected its finance cost by 88 per cent.

Total assets closed at N18.65 billion from N21.27 billion in 2018.

The company during the period under review is proposing a dividend of 70k per share to its shareholders.

Also, shareholders’ fund stood at N8.28 billion decreasing by 3.6 per cent year-on-year from N8.60 billion in 2018.

Commenting on the result, Mr Obong Idiong, the company’s Managing Director, described 2019 as a challenging year for both money and capital markets.

“2019 was a challenging year in the money and capital markets, as businesses struggled to deliver positive results due to the drastic reduction in interest rates on treasury bills and other money market instruments.

“We were also affected by this decline which caused our gross earnings to fall by 13 per cent year-on-year.

“We remain dedicated to delivering quality registrar business to our clients while we slowly transition into digital technology,” Idiong said.

He noted that the company’s Innovation Lab during the period introduced a number of innovative products to the market.

According to him, these include a new version of EasyCoop, an enterprise resource solution for cooperative societies, and EasyMall, a cooperative market place.

“We have also continuously strived to improve how we currently serve our clients as evident in the recent upgrade of our Customer Experience Center and introduction of new customer channels.

“Our digital transformation journey is on course as we change the way we create, deliver and capture value.

“The future is digital technology-driven, which is why we are integrating all our processes into a seamless system that offers world-class solutions to our customers and creating new revenue lines.

“In the long-run, this would reduce our huge exposure to capital market activities which has been on a decline of late.

“Our company would continue to innovate not only to improve capital market interactions, but also to improve our top line in order to deliver superior value to all stakeholders,” he said.