Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank records highest profit in eight years

Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank Plc, has released its unaudited financial statement for the period ended June 2022, showing how rising interest and similar income pushed the firm’s profit to the highest in eight years.

The bank grew its profit to N323.1 million in June 2022, up 7% from N300.1 million recorded in June 2021 while turnover climbed 7% to N909.2 million in June 2022 from N785.5 million in June 2021.

Net operating income grew 6% to N729 million in June 2022, as against N687.8 million recorded in the previous year.

Interest and similar income rose to N786 million in June 2022, 30% from N601.4 million in June 2021. Interest and similar expenses grew 64% to N184.4 million from N112.1 million in the half-year of 2021.

The mortgage bank saw its net fees and commission income drop 38% to N37.3 million in June 2022 from N60 million in June 2021.

The bank paid N17.4 million as tax expenses in June 2022, a 10% drop from N19.4 million paid in half-year 2021. Loans and advances to customers reached N11.17 billion, up 30% from N8.55 billion in June 2021.

Personnel expenses grew to N143.6 million in June 2022, 5% as against N136 million in the preceding year. Total operating expenses stood at N388.4 million, a 5% increase from N368.3 million in June 2021.

Total assets climbed to N16.7 billion in June 2022, 11% from N15 billion in June 2021. Total equity stood at N6.52 billion in half-year 2022, just 4% coming from N6.23 billion in the preceding year.

Cash generated from operations recorded N1.66 billion from N45.1 million year-on-year loss. Cash flow from investing activities recorded a profit of N313.2 million from an N898.7 million loss in June 2021.

Cash flow from financing activities recorded a N17.9 million loss, coming from a gain of N210 million while cash and cash equivalent stood at N1.35 billion, a 0.7% increase from N1.34 billion in June 2021.

Cost moderation was achieved in all the other expense lines of the bank over the review period, leading to a reduction in cost to income ratio. Total operating expenses slowed down from an increase of 20% to N368 million at half year in 2021 to 5.5% to N388 million at the end of June 2022.

With the much stronger growth in gross earnings, operating cost margin declined from 47% in the same period last year to less than 43% at half year in June 2022.

The cost savings were however insufficient to counter the impact of the increased cost of funds on earnings, leading to a decline in net profit margin from 38.2% in the same period in last year to 35.5% at the end of June this year.

The bank earned 7.7 kobo per share during half of this year as against 7 kobo per share in the same period last year. The company earned 12 kobo per share at the end of 2021 and paid out a cash dividend of 5 kobo per share to shareholders.