Access Bank’s investors lose billions in investment as poor earnings crash share

Agency Report

Access Bank shareholders suffered a significant loss in investment on Thursday on the back of a poor financial performance in the second quarter of this year.

After weeks of delay that saw the financial institution fail to meet submission deadline for Q2 result, Access Bank revealed on Thursday that its Net Interest Income depreciated by –1.25 percent or N2.51 billion between April and June.

The Net Interest Income, which is the difference between the income a bank earns from its lending activities and the interest it pays to depositors, fell from N200.01 billion posted in Q2 2001 to N197.50 billion in the same period this year.

Although Access Bank managed to grow its net profit to N88.73 billion during the period, it was a mere 2.21 percent growth when compared to the N86.81 trillion grossed as profit after tax in Q2 2021, and it was not enough to boost investors’ confidence in the lender.

Following the release of Access Bank’s Q2 financial statement, investors dumped their shares, causing shareholders to lose -2.23 percent of their investment on Thursday.

This represents a loss of N7.10 billion and caused a drop in Access Bank’s market value from N318.12 billion to N311.02 billion.

The sell-off halted the upward trajectory of Access Bank’s stock which started last Thursday when it was priced at N8.65kobo per share.

The shares rose to N8.95kobo on Wednesday before crashing to N8.75kobo on Thursday.

The drop in investors’ confidence in Access Bank is expected considering the firm has failed to make the top 10 best performing banks in Nigeria in the last two quarters as released by Ripples Nigeria.

Access Bank’s Net Interest Income dropped by -7.02 percent in the first quarter of this year.