Kenya Commercial Bank Reports $173.82 million Pretax Profit

Kenya Commercial Bank or KCB Group, commonly called Kenya’s biggest lender by assets, posted a 5percent rise in first-half (H1) pretax profit. This has been boosted by growth across all its segments, and it had been able set aside more money to cover bad loans. The bank, has a pretax profit of 17.93 billion shillings or 173.82 million US dollars, announced this in a statement. It adds that it has boosted its provisions for bad debts with 3 billion shillings during the period, from 0.8 billion shillings a year earlier. Non-performing loans dropped to 7.8percent of the total loan book, from 8.4percent in the same period last year, and well below the industry average of 12.7percent, said KCB, which also operates in Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan. Net interest income rose by 5percent to 25.4 billion shillings mainly due to a 14% expansion in lending. It expects to complete its takeover of National Bank of Kenya (NBK) in a share-swap transaction by the end of this quarter, it added. Lawmakers put a dampener on the deal last week when they recommended that the deal, which is already open to NBK’s shareholders, be rejected by the government, which is NBK’s biggest shareholder. Market regulator CMA said the fate of the transaction will depend on KCB attaining the minimum threshold of 75% of acceptance by NBK’s shareholders, who will get 1 KCB share for every 10 NBK shares. KCB recommended an interim dividend of 1.00 shillings per share.