UPDATE 1-Nigeria's Zenith Bank profit dented by loan losses
(Adds quotes, details)
LAGOS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Nigeria's Zenith Bank ZETH.LG said fourth-quarter profits were dented by loan-loss provisions booked following an industry-wide audit.
The bank said on Wednesday pretax profit in the three months to the end of September rose 5 percent to 47.15 billion naira ($318.2 million).
It made 26.14 billion naira of provisions for loan losses and said after-tax profit slipped to 16.39 billion naira from 35.01 billion.
Gross earnings rose 19.42 percent to 166.63 billion naira, the bank said in a filing to the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Zenith Bank was one of 14 lenders recently given the all clear by the central bank, which between Aug. 14 and Oct. 2 sacked the senior management of eight retail banks after an audit of the country's 24 banks showed 10 of them were undercapitalised and posed a systemic risk.
"Despite difficult market conditions, Zenith Bank continued to grow, reinforcing our strategy of conservative lending across a diversified portfolio of blue-chip clients," Chief Financial Officer Emmanuel Udom said in a statement.
The central bank said it would inject a total of $3.9 billion into nine of the 10 banks facing liquidity problems, bringing the total amount of non-performing loans at the lenders to more than 1.5 trillion naira, of which only 135.6 billion naira has been recovered. [ID:nLE412588]
"Having a strong capital base coupled with extremely low leverage has been the keystone to our business model, enabling us to maintain profitability against a very challenging market backdrop," Udom said.
"The strength of our approach has been endorsed by the marketplace which has seen a total return to shareholders of 78 percent over the last six months," he added.
Nigeria's anti-corruption police said on Monday it will demand hundreds of debtors of the latest five rescued banks begin re-paying their loans this week or face possible prosecution. [ID: nLJ200147] (Reporting by Oludare Mayowa and Tume Ahemba; Editing by Tume Ahemba and David Holmes) ($1=148.21 naira)
