Africa Prudential Reports 24% Drop in Profit to ₦0.83B in H1 2021

African Prudential Plc announced its unaudited financial statements for the 6 months to June 2021.

Financial Highlights:

• Gross Earnings: N1.67 billion, compared to N1.87 billion in HY 2020 (11% YoY Decline);
• Profit Before Tax: N0.97 billion, compared to N1.22 billion in HY 2020 (20% YoY Decline);
• Profit After Tax: N0.83 billion, compared to N1.08 billion in HY 2020 (24% YoY Decline);
• Total Assets: N88.87 billion, compared to N17.73 billion as at FY 2020 (401% YTD Increase);
• Total Liabilities: N80.71 billion, compared to N9.36 billion as at FY 2020 (762% YTD Increase);
• Shareholders’ Fund stood at N8.16 billion, a 2% YTD decline from N8.37 billion as at FY 2020.

Commenting on the results, Obong Idiong, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer said:

“Despite the challenges that we encountered in the first half of the year, we are happy with the milestones that we achieved over the period, which should reflect in stronger earnings in the second half. The decline in H1 revenue reflects the impact of the renegotiation of fee rates of some contracts with customers. In addition, delays in the signing of notable digital consultancy contracts mean that we were unable to report the associated revenues in the first half of the year. We also made a strategic investment in the recently launched Heir Insurance company which should offer fresh opportunities for us to deploy our digital technology service.

Concerning our operating costs, we endured the impact of rising inflation and exchange rate volatility on our operating expenses as these factors contributed to higher development costs associated with our growing digital technology business. Nevertheless, we are committed to the achievement of our strategic aspirations and look forward to reporting the gains from some milestones that we have achieved in the subsequent quarters.

The outlook for the third quarter is positive on the back of the progress we are making in our digital technology business. We are seeing a domino effect of the successful launch of digital technology solutions for a few clients in the first half of the year that have led to contracts to build similar solutions for other clients in the public and private sectors. This should buoy revenues in the third quarter. We are also set to launch an upgrade of a digital solution for annual general meetings in Q3 as well as a new e-commerce platform.“