Nigeria’s bank holding group, FCMB is yet to release its 2015 9 Months results nearly 3 months after the end of the third quarter of the year. The company explained that the reason for the continuous delay is because the bank is carrying out an audit of its financial statements. Carrying out an audit in the third quarter of the year is not common as most banks either audit in their half-year or final year.
Nairametrics reached out to analysts who track the bank and they explain that the longer the audit takes the more worrying investors get. Speculations are already rife that the bank may be announcing a disappointing result at the end of the period. Their half-year results showed profits dropped 14% with loan impairments rising a whopping 47% year on year. The speculations along with the currency crisis facing the financial sector has cost the banking industry negatively with the index down by our 22% YTD and -14.8% QTD. FCMB shares has dropped 22.5% since September 30th 2015 shaving off about N10 billion in market capitalization.
Some analysts believe the delay in releasing the results may have contributed to the N10 billion drop in market value citing the fact that it was one of the better performers in the first half of the year. FCMB now has a market capitalization of N36 billion only.
