Unity Bank Remains Static

Unity Bank Plc appears to be left behind in the turnaround of the fortunes of the NSE as witnessed in 2012.  
Market watchers are bewildered that the bank remains the only stock in the banking subsector yet to trail the path of capital appreciation thereby leaving shareholders in the company in perpetual loss.

Available shows that the impressive and profitable performance of the Nigerian stock market last year was largely contributed by transactions in the two most capitalized sectors of the market namely, Banking
and Consumer Goods, returning 21 percent and 43 percent gains respectively.   

It is noteworthy that in a sector that is contributing to the overall positive trend of the market, Unity Bank’s share price remains static at a nominal value of 50 kobo per share in the highly competitive Nigerian stock market.

The inability of the stock to rise above the nominal value of 50 kobo has exempted it from being included in market making activity which stakeholders believe has boosted the market recovery. 

A look at the latest full year audited financial report of the bank shows earning per share (EPS) at 6.77 Kobo during the 2011 operating period.  This is in contrast to 37.5 Kobo recorded in 2010 and translating to 81.9 percent fall. 

Gross earnings stood at 47.5 billion as against N64.8 billion in 2010 while profit after tax (PAT) came to N2.3 billion in the same review period against N2.4 billion the year before. This performance indicates a 28.7 percent decline in gross earnings.

Meanwhile the number of shares held by investors in the company stood at 34.9 billion units as at December 2011 and has increased to 37,170,729,695 units in 2012.