Defiant to the harsh impacts of COVID-19 pandemic and crude oil prices free-fall consequences on businesses, the Bank of Industry (BOI), has announced that its 2020 performance showed ‘strength and resilience’.
Disclosing this at the bank’s 2020 Annual General Meeting held virtually in Abuja, the Bank’s Chairman, Mr Aliyu Dikko, said the group’s total asset rose from N1.04tn to N1.86tn between 2019 and 2020.
He also added that the 79.1% increase was largely attributed to the successful debt syndications of €1bn and $1bn that were concluded in March and December 2020 respectively.
He said that the group’s total equity increased by 15.3% from N293.08bn in 2019 to N336.48bn in 2020.
Furthermore, he said that loans and advances, affected by the challenging environment, grew in 2020 by 1.3% to N749.84bn from the 2019 position.
The Punch cites Dikko as maintaining that pretax profit dropped by 9.6% to N35.54bn “as a result of the economic slowdown in the year as well as the various interventions and support initiated by the bank for its customers.”
The Chairman said that in 2020, the bank enabled the disbursement of N2.5bn and N1.2bn under the N-Power and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes to 300,011 and 109,039 beneficiaries respectively.
He equally explained that the bank lowered interest rates on all BOI-funded projects from 10% to 8% for a one-year period and extended the principal repayment period by 3 months.
The online newspaper quoted Dikko as saying, “The bank carried out the directive of the CBN, by reviewing and restructuring all projects managed under the CBN intervention programme with moratorium extension of three months (with a possible extension to 12 months) and interest rate reduction to five per cent per annum.”
Mr. Kayode Pitan, the BOI’s MD/CEO, also noted that “…while the bank was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it remained committed to supporting enterprises across the country.”
Azuka Edokobi is a Writer , a Farmer, a Supply Chain Expert and an Entrepreneur
