H1 2023: Bank of Industry Total Assets Hit N3.3tn

Oluchi Chibuzor

The Bank of Industry has recorded yet another historic milestone by achieving N3.3 trillion in total assets as at June 30 2023.

This represents a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth level of 67 per cent on N1.97 trillion asset level as at June 2022.

Profit before tax after impairments (PBT) has grown by an impressive 177 per cent Y0Y from N37.5billion in June 2022 to N104billion in June 2023. 

This, the bank said, is due to the prudent management of the  Bank’s assets and the full hedge of the foreign currency assets.

“The Bank has historically been able to maintain a non-performing loan (NPL) rate below regulatory threshold of 5 per cent. The Bank’s NPL as at June 2023 was 1.88 per cent down from 3.6 per cent as at December 2022. 

“BOI has also grown its equity position by 57 per cent since June 2022 – from N403.6billion to N634billion in June 2023. BOI’s equity position exceeds regulatory requirement of N10billion for retail DFIs. BOI has contributed to the national budget by paying dividends of approximately N42.2billion and taxes amounting to N64.2bn from 2017 to date, “it stated.

The Bank of Industry is Nigeria’s oldest and most successful DFI. The Bank is a duly registered Company under the Companies and Allied Matters Act. 2020 and licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The Bank is professionally run with strong corporate governance. It is audited by the KPMG, CBN and rated by local and international rating agencies (Fitch, Moody’s and Agusto & Co.) 

The Bank has focused heavily on delivering its mandate of supporting industry and MSMEs to grow and thrive by disbursing over N1.4 Trillion over the last 5 years to over 4.4Million customers including MSMEs (Most of whom are women owned) thereby creating and saving 10.005Million jobs.

Under the leadership of its Managing Director/CEO, Mr Olukayode Pitan from 2017 to date, BOI has raised over $5 billion from the international financial markets to support its mandate of growing Nigerian industries, MSMEs, Women entrepreneurs and youths. 

The first of the transactions was a $750 million syndication concluded in 2017 with the support of Afreximbank and a team of international Financial Institutions (now fully paid off).  

The second and third were the Euro 1billion syndication closed in March 2020 and another $1billion syndication that closed in December 2020 (to be fully paid off by December 2023). 

The bank’s maiden Eurobond of €750 million, concluded in February 2022 was the fourth transaction. This transaction marked the first of its kind in several ways to the bank, Nigeria and Africa. This deal was the bank’s first Eurobond transaction and the first Euro-denominated Eurobond transaction in Nigeria.

The fifth capital raising transaction was the €1 billion guaranteed senior loan facility concluded in August of 2022. This deal also represents the first of its kind, by any Nigerian financial institution, both in terms of its size and structure.

Through this transaction, the bank raised liquidity at affordable rates and diversified its funding sources by attracting new lenders at a time when the international capital markets were prohibitively expensive and shut to many borrowers. The bank also won an award for this innovative transaction. 

A €100 million line of credit from the French Development Agency (AFD) was also concluded in August 2022 representing the sixth capital raising. Through this credit facility, the bank can expand its financing interventions in environmentally friendly and green projects. A grant of €2.5 million was also included in this deal to support capacity building for both BOI staff and customers. 

Though the bank intervenes in sectors and projects that are considered highly risky and unrewarding by conventional lenders, is able to develop a business model to de-risk the affected sectors and projects for other lenders to invest in.

 “In 2023, the BOI continued its impressive growth in major financial indices on a year-on-year basis, thus consolidating its position as Nigeria’s largest and most impactful Development Finance Institution, ”said Pitan.