Century’s Botswana operation in $55 m loss

Century Holdings, another financial services company which is expanding into the region, saw its International Transfer company in Botswana make a loss of $55 million but it says this was largely because the operation was a start up, but overall it made a net profit of $352.4 million.

The company is, however, confident that the operation will contribute positively in future.

According to its results for the 15 months to December its balance sheet grew by 359 percent from $8.5 billion to $39.6b billion.

Net interest income rose from $467.8 million to $1.2 billion while non-interest income shot up from $288.4 million to $3.1 billion.

Century Bank had a net profit of $314.3 million a remarkable turn around from a loss of $163.4 million.

Its net interest income rose from $66.8 million to $980.8 million while dealing and exchange income shot up from $1.3 million to $465.3 million.

Fees and commissions rose from $29.9 million to $549.8 million. The Leasing Company of Zimbabwe had a net profit of $330.7 million, up from $214 million.

Net interest income increased from $381 million to $662.8 million while dealing profit rose from $133 million to $370.6 million.

Other income shot up from $30.7 million to $262.9 million.

The company says although it was adversely affected by the under-performance of the key economic sectors such as agriculture and mining, demand remained high as investors tended to shift to vehicular assets as a hedge against rampant inflation.

Century Discount had a net profit of $198.1 million, up from $80.8 million.

Net income rose only marginally from $95.6 million to $142.2 million but dealing income rose significantly from $91.3 million to $314 million while fees and commissions increased from zero to $48.7 million.

Century Stockbrokers, Century Asset Management and Century Advisory Services, however, made an aggregate loss of $127 million. This was largely because they were all start-ups.

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