- Fidelity Bank Plc has listed its N30 billion bond on the FMDQ OTC securities market.
- The N30 billion 7-year unsecured bonds, which will be due in 2022 at a yield of 16.48 per cent would also act as tier 11 capital for the bank.
- The Bond, listed back in May, was raised in order to boost the bank’s ability to lend to SMEs. Fidelity bank said it had earmarked 80 per cent of the bond proceeds for SMEs financing.
- Chief Executive Officer Nnamdi Okonkwo, said that as a dealing member of the FMDQ, the bank relishes the depth and transparency of the FMDQ OTC platform. Okonkwo said the FMDQ has empowered the Nigerian debt capital market with price discovery, transparency and market integrity.
“We issued this bond in May, it is already listed, but we are here at the FMDQ today to also list here. We practically raised this fund to be able to finance our SME and retail businesses. From our experience with the SMEs, some have transited from just trading to longer term businesses like manufacturing.
“Some of them now need machineries, so they need longer term finance and we don’t want to keep financing that with short-term funds because of the strategic view we have taken that we would continue to deepen our support to the SMEs,” the Fidelity Bank boss explained.
- Fidelity Bank’s half-year gross earnings increased by 13.6 per cent to N71.9billion, from N63.3billion in 2014. Net Fee Income increased by 25.9 per cent to N15.2billion from N12.1billion, while operating income increased by 14.1per cent to N42 billion, from N36.8billion in 2014.
