kyron.regis@guardian.co.tt
For the second time in a row, First Citizens Group has crossed a billion dollars in profit.
In the company’s 2019 end of year financial statements, the First Citizens Group recorded a profit before tax of $1.06 billion representing a 5.2 per cent growth when compared to 2018.
First Citizen’s Profit after tax (PAT) amounted to $751.7 million, which represents an increase of $78 million or 11.6 per cent when compared to 2018.
Total assets of the group as at September 2019 is registered at $43.4 billion, which is an increase of 3.2 per cent when compared to September 2018.
In a statement, the banks chairman Anthony Smart said: “This increase was in part driven by growth in Customer Loans and Advances and the Investments portfolios of 16.3 per cent and 4.9 per cent respectively, which resulted in an increase in net margin of 74.3 million or 4.7 per cent.”
The company also disclosed that its customer deposits also increased by 1.4 per cent to $25.8 billion.
Smart explained: “As a result of these financial achievements, on December 9. 2019, the Board of Directors declared a final dividend of $0.49 per share, which will bring the total dividend for the fiscal period to $1.70 per share, an increase of 6.25 per cent when compared to 2018.”
He noted that the final dividend will be made payable on 3rd January 2020 to all shareholders on record as at 19th December 2019.
The accomplishments of First citizens were underscored by Standard and Poor’s (S&P’s) affirmation of First Citizens Bank’s rating of BB/Stable/A-2 in October.
Furthermore, for the second consecutive year, the Bank has been awarded the highest ranking of all companies in a 2019 Corporate Governance Study conducted by the University of the West Indies, Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business (UWI-ALJGSB) for compliance with the T&T Corporate Governance Code.