By Adebisi Adeyemi Lagos, Nigeria
The Bank of Industry (BOI) posted an operating Profit Before Tax of N17bn in 2016 which represents a 44% increase over the N11.9bn that was recorded in 2015. The Bank’s loans and advances also rose by 10% to N171bn in 2016 from N156bn in 2015. Disbursements to Small and Medium Enterprises similarly went up by 42% within the same period to N8bn compared with N5.64bn in 2015. The quality of BOI’s risk assets as well improved phenomenally with a reduction in the ratio of non-performing loans (NPL) to 3.72% in 2016 from 5.87 in 2015. This feat was achieved in year when the average ratio of non-performing loans in the nation’s banking industry rose sharply to 14% which is beyond the Central Bank of Nigeria’s threshold of 5%.
While commenting BOI’s outstanding performance 2016, which has been described as the best in the bank’s history despite last year’s economic head winds, the institution’s Acting Managing Director and CEO, Mr Waheed Olagunju attributed it to strong commitment to professionalism and strict adherence to global best practices by the bank’s competent, dedicated as well as passionate management team and staff. He added that these achievements also culminated in BOI’s consistently high ratings by international and domestic rating agencies being upgraded and affirmed. While Moody’s assigned BOI Aa1 in 2016 up from Ba3 of 2015, Agusto’s rating of AA- in 2016 was higher than A+ of 2015. AA+ assigned by Fitch in 2015 was affirmed in 2016.
