After reporting a 5% decline in profit after tax for the year ended 31st December 2023, Equity Group Holdings has bounced back recording strong 1st quarter results.
Profit after tax for the period ended 31st March 2024 grew by 25% to a record Kshs.16 billion compared to a similar period last year.
Differentiated strong leadership decision-making, and an agile balance sheet drove the swift recovery.
Bold decisive actions saw growth in deposit placements to 11% compared to the deposits growth of 29% registered for the year ended 31st December 2023, as the Group skipped expensive deposits.
Growth in long-term borrowed funds saw a decline of 21% year on year for the period ended 31st March 2024 as the Group paid out maturing repriced expensive dollar-denominated loans.
Given the elevated credit risk characterized by high non-performing loans environment, the Group enhanced credit risk underwriting resulting to a 3% year on year growth in loan book as at 31st March 2024 compared to a 26% growth rate for the year ended 31st December 2023.
This also led to re-allocation of lending from private sector credit to public sector lending through government securities, which grew to 21%.
Consequently, the cost of credit risk dropped to 2.9% for the period to 31st March 2024 from 4.4% for the year ended 31st December 2023.