ZENITH EMERGES AFRICAN BANK OF THE YEAR

Another international recognition has come the way of Zenith Bank as it was Wednesday night named the ‘African Bank of the Year,’ by the African Investor magazine, capping an extraordinary year in which the performance of the bank’s stock on the Nigerian Stock Exchange earned it the award of the ‘Quoted Company of the Year’.

At the well attended award ceremony held at The Civic Centre, in Lagos, Zenith Bank emerged Africa’s best, beating five other banks including the Standard Bank Group of South Africa.

Judges of the highly competitive and reputable awards held at a well attended award ceremony held at The Civic Centre, in Lagos, were: Dr. Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Chairman, Africa Business Roundtable; Dr. Ken Kwaku, former Chief Representative for Africa at the Multilateral Investment guarantee Agency (MIGA); Ms. Arunma Oteh, Vice President, Corporate Service, African Development Bank; Dr. William Kalema, Chairman DFCU Uganda; and DR. Joe Wanjui, Chairman, UAP Insurance, Kenya and member, Board of Directors Stanbic Bank, South Africa.

Receiving the award, the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive of Zenith Bank, Jim Ovia said, “It is a great honour for every Zenith Bank staff wherever they may be either in Zenith Bank, London, UK; Zenith Bank, Accra, Ghana; Zenith Bank, Johannesburg, South Africa or the grandfather of them all, Zenith Bank, Nigeria. “ “This is an endorsement of our brand and an inspiration to continue to provide excellent financial services to our growing communities of customers,” Ovia said.

Zenith Bank was in January 2007 adjudged the most customer-focused bank in Nigeria from a survey conducted by foremost consulting firm, KPMG. The survey, which focused on corporate customers of banks, including companies in a variety of sectors, found that they were most satisfied with the services rendered by Zenith Bank. In 2005, Zenith was named ‘The Most Respected Bank in Nigeria’ from a survey conducted by PriceWaterHouseCoopers. That year also, Zenith Bank also won the ‘Bank of the Year’ award from The Banker magazine, a publication of the Financial Times of London.

Recently in Washington DC, Zenith Bank was again named the most Corporate Socially Responsible Bank in Africa by the Business Africa Magazine. This award reaffirmed the fact that Zenith Bank is not just a leading financial power house but also the pacesetter in Corporate Giving. Zenith Bank has virtually changed the way banks respond to their environment by devoting an appreciable amount of its Profit Before Tax for philanthropy.

The bank’s philanthropic activities are anchored on the premise of giving back to the host communities and societies for providing an environment conducive and supportive of the pursuit of enterprise. Only recently the bank was also adjudged the Most Corporate Socially Responsible Company in Nigeria by ThisDay newspaper for investing N1 billion in a single project – the highest by any company on a single project in Nigeria.

Zenith Bank, which first quarter results continue to draw applause from the investing and financial publics, is the largest company in Nigeria as well as the West African sub-region with Market Capitalization of N613.12 billion ($4.84 billion) as at June 30, 2007. Total assets plus contingents approximates $10.02 billion (N1.27 trillion) making it the biggest bank in Nigeria.

The bank’s unaudited result for the quarter ending September 30, 2007 showed gross earnings of N28.86 billion and a profit before tax of N10.33 billion, up from N6.41 billion last year. Profit after tax for the quarter amounted to N8.06 billion, showing a remarkable jump of 70 per cent over the N4.73 billion recorded for the corresponding period last year.

The bank last week announced plans to raise an additional N130 billion from the capital market by way of public offer of 1.763, 000, 000 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each and a rights issue of 1,654,557,911 units.

Established in May 1990, the bank became a public limited company in June 2004 and was listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange on October 21, 2004 following a successful initial public offering (IPO), which recorded a subscription level of 554%.

Zenith Bank remains a global brand with strong presence in Accra, Ghana (Zenith Bank, Ghana) and London, England (Zenith Bank, UK) as well as a representative office in Johannesburg.

Zenith bank’s core values include service excellence, investment in human capital development, superior asset quality and strong credit culture, good and sustainable earnings, strong capital base, professionalism and community development. The bank maintains sound corporate governance culture in line with global best practices. This reflects in the bank’s consistent impressive risk assets quality with non-performing loans to gross loans and advances ratio of 1.67% against industry average of 18% and peer group average of 7%1.  

(Posted 8th November, 2007)