Regional Bank, I&M Holdings on Tuesday announced a 30 percent after tax profit growth during the first quarter of 2019.
The Group with operations in Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda and Tanzania was able to navigate through a challenging operating environment to post a 2.4 billion shillings ($19.7 million) profit up from 1.8 billion shillings($9.8 million) posted in March 2018.
The Group’s lending recorded a modest growth of 11 percent compared to March 2018, of 168.9 billion shillings ($1.6 billion) up from 152.7 billion shillings ($1.5 billion) of the similar period last year.
“The Group has continued to take advantage of opportunities presented by the operating environment to record a steady growth trajectory on its business performance. The performance is as a result of a sustained five-year strategy, which is anchored on enabling the growth of a deeply customer-focused organisation responsive to the changing dynamics of the financial sector,” said the chairman of the of the I&M, Daniel Ndonye.
“The Group’s regional bank operations subsidiaries supported the overall performance, contributing 20 % of the overall profit before tax,” he added.
The Gross Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) recorded a slight increase of 23.7 billion shillings ($226 million) up from 22.4 billion shillings($217million) of the similar period last year, highlighting increased lending risk in the various industries such as manufacturing, real estate, building and construction that the Bank finances.
Despite the marginal increase on NPAs, the group has been able to reduce on its loan loss provisions, owed to increased loan recoveries and strong work outs, the bank said.
JK/as/APA