Nigerian stocks wrapped up the week on a bearish note after the benchmark index registered its third negative close in the last five sessions.

• Sentiments notably picked up where they left off yesterday, as selloffs persisted in bellwether ticker – ZENITHBANK (-1.55%) as well as in Telco giant – MTN Nigeria (-3.28%).
• The 74 basis points pullback recorded today kept the All Share Index return firmly rooted in the red and also lowering the Year date returns to -1.88%.
• Save for the Oil and Gas (+0.25%) index lifted by sustained interest in OANDO (+2.99%), all other sectors closed in the negative territory.
• The Insurance (-2.32%), Banking (-0.48%), Consumer Goods (-0.40%), and Industrial Goods (-0.19) indices declined following price dips in MANSARD (-5.36%), ZENITHBANK (-1.55%), INTBREW (-3.65%), and WAPCO (-2.94%) respectively.
• The market breadth closed negative as LASACO led 17 Gainers as against 23 Losers topped by CHAMPION at the end of today’s session

Top gainers

1. LASACO down 9.82% to close at N1.23
2. MBENEFIT down 8.11% to close at N0.37
3. COURTVILLE down 5.00% to close at N0.21
4. OANDO down 2.99% to close at N3.45
5. NAHCO down 2.70% to close at N2.28

Top losers

1. WEMABANK down 10.00% to close at N0.63
2. CHAMPION down 10.00% to close at N2.52
3. SUNUASSUR down 9.59% to close at N0.66
4. AFRIPRUD down 5.74% to close at N5.75
5. MANSARD down 5.36% to close at N1.06

Outlook

Nigerian stocks ended the last trading session of the week on a bearish note amid profit-taking across the market spectrum.

• Downtrend was driven by price depreciation medium capitalized stocks amongst which are; WEMA, CHAMPION, MANSARD.
• That being said, Nairametrics envisages cautious buying on the account that certain market indicators reveal investors are taking some of their gains across the market spectrum.

The founder and Chairman of Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Jim Ovia is expected to earn a massive sum of N9.575 billion in dividend for the financial year ended December 2020

The highly revered banker is the single majority shareholder of Zenith Bank as he directly owns 3,546,199,395 units of the fast-rising bank stock out of the 31,396,493,787 ordinary shares available. This gives him an 11.29% direct interest in the Tier -1 bank.

It’s however important to note that such dividend is subject to a 10% withholding tax in Nigeria.

READ: Is Zenith Bank thriving on the strength of sound financial indices?

Recall that about a day ago, the Board of Directors of the bank in a statement released via the Nigerian Stock Exchange proposed a final dividend of N2.70, amounting to a total payout of N3.00 per share for the financial year 2020 (interim: N0.30).

This proposal reflects the past year’s robust performance and appears to signal that Zenith bank remains well-positioned to perform in the current financial year. However, there was a lower payout ratio at 40.9% compared to FY’19 (42.1%).

• Key earnings drivers to the financial year performance under review were a 90 basis points drop in the cost of funds to 2.1%, which propelled net interest income (+12.2% YoY) and a 3.8x jump in revaluation gains to N43.4 billion.
• These offset pressures from operating costs (the cost to income ratio rose 1.2ppts to 50.0%) and impairment charges (cost of risk rose 40basis points to 1.5%)

READ: Jim Ovia: From a clerk to founder of Nigeria’s most profitable bank

Described as the ‘Godfather of banking in Nigeria’ by Forbes Africa, Jim Ovia is quite popular for his business dexterity and leadership skills, especially in the banking sector.

His early interest in technology was the reason Zenith Bank became the first Nigerian company to have a functional website in 1995 and was able to smoothly migrate its operations from analog times to a digital era.

From a single branch in a residential building, Zenith Bank now has hundreds of branches all over Nigeria and several subsidiaries in other countries. The bank became a Public Limited Company in 2001 and was listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE), and later on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

On the 27th of April 2007, Zenith Bank Plc became the first Nigerian bank in 25 years to be licensed by the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA), giving rise to Zenith Bank UK Limited.