Despite the harsh operating environment in the country, seven listed financial institutions on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX), paid investors a total sum of N801.3 billion as dividend between 2018 and 2020, a data by NGX has revealed.
Analysis of the NGX data revealed that the seven banks in 2020 paid N278.84 billion as dividends, while N271.81billion and N250.64billion were paid as dividends between 2019 and 2018, respectively.
Despite domestic and foreign macroeconomic challenges, these financial giants over the years have sustained dividend payout to shareholders coupled with growth in profit.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had disclosed that financial Institutions under Financial and Insurance sector grew by 13.34per cent in full-year 2020 from 2.4per cent in 2019 and 1.41per cent in 2018.
Out of the N801.3billion dividend declared by these seven financial institutions, Zenith Bank contributed 32.7 per cent, while GTCO contributed 30.4 per cent.
Others financial institutions under consideration are Access Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, FBN Holdings, Fidelity Bank Plc and Stanbic IBTC Holdings.
Further analysis revealed that five out of the seven financial institutions have maintained a policy of paying interim and final dividend, a key factor that has sustained investors’ confidence in the domestic capital market.
Specifically, Zenith Bank and GTCO declared N262.16billion and N243.57billion as dividend respectively in the last three years.
Zenith Bank between 2019 and 2020 financial year paid investors N87.91billion and N86.34billion in 2018 as dividend respectively.
On its part, GTCO last year paid N83.1billion as total dividend while in the previous year, N81.01billion was paid as total and interim dividend.
Closing following them is Stanbic IBTC Holdings, which declared N101.3billion in the period under review while United Bank for Africa declared N81.05billion as dividend between 2018 and 2020.
During the period, Access Bank declared N58.6billion as dividend while FBN Holdings dividend amounted to N39.13billion.
In addition, Fidelity Bank declared N15.35billion as dividend between 2020 and 2018.
A review of the data showed that Zenith Bank leads in the banking sector as the management maintained robust payout in the three years under review.
Guaranty Trust Holdco came second in terms of dividend to investors amid growing profit and other fundamentals.
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