Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc emerged as a rare bright spot on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) on Thursday, defying a sector-wide pullback to rank among the day’s best performers.
Shares in the financial services group rose 6.67 per cent to close at ₦8.00, placing it third on the gainers’ table, even as the NGX Banking Index fell 2.04 per cent. The wider market retreated for a second consecutive session, with the All-Share Index easing 0.7 per cent as decliners outnumbered advancers by more than two to one.
Investors have been locking in gains from the exchange’s July rally, with roughly ₦1.65 trillion wiped from total equities value over the two-day decline.
Thursday’s advance in Sterling Financial saw some 36.01 million shares change hands, worth approximately ₦286.8 million.
The share price move comes days after the group reported a 20.4 per cent rise in first-half profit after tax, to ₦50.30 billion, alongside continued growth in deposits and a balance sheet now approaching ₦5 trillion.
The company’s capital position has also strengthened. A ₦96.6 billion public offer completed during the half lifted shareholders’ funds by 27.8 per cent to ₦547.7 billion, giving the group greater capacity to lend as activity picks up.
Underlying the half-year performance is a franchise earning more on its assets than a year earlier. Net interest income rose 41.0 per cent to ₦137.4 billion, return on average equity stood at 20.6 per cent, and return on average assets improved to 2.35 per cent from 2.05 per cent.
Sterling Financial operates a diversified holding-company structure, with banking, non-interest finance and wealth management housed under Sterling Bank, The Alternative Bank and SterlingFI.
