For the second year running, leading financial institution, Fidelity Bank Plc, has emerged the company with the highest earnings per share on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) based on half year financial figures.
According to a report by BusinessDay, Fidelity Bank, Seplat Energy, Total Energies, Okomu oil, Presco, Dangote Cement, MTN Nigeria, BUA Foods, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) and Geregu Power emerged as the companies with the highest earnings per share within the review period.
Earnings per share (EPS) is a company’s net profit divided by the number of common shares it has outstanding.
It also indicates how much money a company makes for each share of its stock and is a widely used metric for estimating corporate value.
A higher EPS indicates greater value because investors will pay more for a company’s shares if they think the company has higher profits relative to its share price.
Fidelity Bank recorded an earnings per share of N184 in the first half of 2023 from N79 in the first half of 2022.
The shares outstanding stand at 32.01 million, with a price which stood at N7 and a traded volume of 32.15 million as of 12:59 p.m. on Friday.
The bank’s profit for the period stood at N53.3 billion in the first half of 2023 from N22.84 billion in the similar period of 2022.
Fidelity Bank’s cash and cash equivalents rose to N501.54 billion in the first half of 2023 from N276.07 in the first half of 2022.u
It would be recalled that the bank’s shareholders recently approved a capital raising exercise via a Public Offer for up to 10 billion Ordinary Shares and Rights Issue of up to 3.2 billion Ordinary Shares representing one new share for every 10 shares held to new and existing shareholders respectively.