AXA Mansard Insurance Plc multiplied group after-tax profit about seven times to over N13 billion at the end of its half-year operations with a foreign exchange gain of N11.5 billion providing the spur.
The company’s interim financial report for the half year ended June 2023 shows that profit for the half year is already close to the group profit for the past four years put together.
It is a year of big compensation in the making for the composite risk underwriting firm after two preceding years of profit declines. The company suffered profit drops of 18 per cent to N3.7 billion in 2021 and 35 per cent to N2.4 billion in 2022 – the lowest profit figure in six years.
Operating fundamentals also improved to further support the foreign exchange windfall during the period. Group insurance revenue went up by 12.3 per cent to close at N39 billion for the half year.
Insurance service expenses slowed down relative to revenue at an increase of 7.7 per cent to N23.4 billion. Moderating also are net reinsurance expenses – which grew by 10 per cent to N9.4 billion.
The favourable combination of improved insurance revenue and moderated costs powered an impressive growth of 38.8 per cent in insurance service results, amounting to N6.2 billion at the half year.
Investing activities provided the high growth locomotive that sped up the company’s profit delivery during the period. Driven by the foreign exchange gain, net gain on financial assets turned around from a net loss of N97 million to close at N11.6 billion in the half year.
Added to that is a boost from profit on investment contracts, which swelled by 184.5 per cent to stand at about N418 million at half year.
The company therefore built a net investment income of N15 billion at the end of half-year operations, more than five times the jump from less than N3 billion in the same period last year.
Operating cost moderated against the strong growths in insurance service results and net investment income – which powered operating profit.
At over N14.9 billion in the half year, operating profit jumped six times from N2.5 billion in the same period in 2022.
The company posted a pre-tax profit of N14.7 billion for the half-year operations, rising from less than N2.4 billion last year.
It earned an after-tax profit of over N13 billion, a massive increase from N1.9 billion over the same period. This has boosted retained earnings from N8.2 billion at the end of last year to over N21 billion in half a year.
The summary of the earnings story of the company for the half-year trading is that robust revenue diminished costs and profit numbers soared far above expectations.
This is providing a compensating performance against the volatile earnings reading the company experienced in 2022. It is a regaining of traction that the company lost after lifting profit by 56 per cent to N4.5 billion in 2020. were
Earnings per share are up at N1.43 at the half year from 17 kobo per share in the same period last year.
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