Zenith Bank released its nine-month results today, and the two profit lines point in opposite directions. Pre-tax profit rose 1.2% to ₦928.8bn. Profit after tax, the part that actually belongs to shareholders, fell 11.6% to ₦675.8bn. How can both be true? It helps to know what each line measures. 1. Profit before tax (PBT) is what the business earned from lending, fees and trading, after costs and bad-loan provisions. 2. Profit after tax (PAT) is what's left once the tax bill is paid. Earnings per share and dividends come from this number. 3. The gap between them is the tax charge, and it can change a lot from year to year. For $ZENITHBA, the tax charge jumped 65% to ₦253.0bn. Roughly 27% of pre-tax profit went to tax, up from about 17% a year ago. That one line erased the small gain in PBT. It's not just Zenith. $GTCO reported this week too: PBT slipped 2.3% to ₦879.9bn, but PAT fell 12.2% to ₦614.6bn, because a bigger share went to tax. The other big swing at Zenith: impairments, the money set aside for loans that may not be repaid, fell 70.5% to ₦230.8bn. That saving is what kept pre-tax profit growing while gross earnings fell 15% and trading turned into a ₦229.2bn loss. The takeaway: when you read a results headline, check which profit it's quoting. PBT shows how the business ran. PAT shows what shareholders actually get. Which line do you look at first when results come out? Tell us below 👇 Not financial advice.
What Nigeria is investing in
Where we start: on Thursday the All-Share Index rose 0.47% to a record 254,083.02, and the market's total value hit an all-time high of ₦164.97trn. The index is up 63.28% this year, and today is the last trading day of October. The puzzle this morning is $NB. Nigerian Breweries' revenue grew only 5.4% to ₦1.10trn in the first nine months, yet profit after tax jumped 33.4% to ₦114.1bn. How does a small rise in sales become a big rise in profit? • Its cost of sales actually fell slightly, so gross margin widened to about 43.3% from 39.7% • Finance costs, the interest it pays on borrowing, fell 61% to ₦11.20bn • Net finance costs dropped to ₦7.50bn from ₦33.66bn a year earlier The lesson: profit can grow much faster than sales when costs and debt shrink. The open question is how much of that can repeat once the debt savings are already in the numbers. Three things worth watching today: 1. How the market prices $NB's results. Selling and distribution costs still rose 24.3%, so investors may weigh the margin gains against the spending. 2. Can $DANGCEM hold its new 52-week high? It jumped 5.82% to ₦1,420 yesterday and single-handedly lifted the Industrial Index 3.41%. 3. Where idle cash goes. At Wednesday's Treasury bill auction the government took only ₦71.16bn of ₦1.91trn in bids, and the one-year rate eased to 15.80%. When that much money is turned away from T-bills, some of it looks for other homes, and stocks are one of them. Want to see how today's moves hit your own holdings? Add your portfolio on Gopexly and follow along. Not financial advice, just what's on the radar.
A few heavyweight stocks can drive the entire index while others are still struggling. Don’t judge your portfolio by the index alone. Understand what’s driving the market, focus on quality businesses with strong fundamentals, and avoid chasing stocks just because everyone is buying them.
Thursday's close: the All-Share Index rose 0.47% (+1,200.24 pts) to a record 254,083.02, undoing Wednesday's dip. Investors gained about ₦779.31bn, taking the market to an all-time high of ₦164.97trn, and the index is now up 63.28% this year. Yesterday $DANGCEM shrugged off its record nine-month results and closed flat. Today it moved: up 5.82% to ₦1,420.00, a new 52-week high, and the most traded stock by value at about ₦5.23bn. As the market's biggest company, that one move lifted the Industrial Index 3.41%. This morning we asked three questions. Here's how they played out: 1. First HoldCo did not find a floor. It fell the maximum 10% again, to ₦125.55, its second limit-down day in a row. That kept the Banking Index down 2.10%. 2. $SEPLAT held steady at ₦16,000.10 after its results and 19-cent dividend. 3. UBA mostly held on to its jump, closing at ₦42.90, down just 0.23%. Breadth was close to even, with 27 stocks up and 26 down. Trading doubled in value to ₦57.36bn on about 654m shares, across 35,821 deals. Top gainers: eTranzact (+10.00% to ₦17.60), Sovereign Trust Insurance (+9.60% to ₦2.17), FTG Insurance (+9.38% to ₦1.75). Top losers: First HoldCo (-10.00%), Livestock Feeds (-9.70% to ₦12.10), Tantalizers (-8.40% to ₦3.60). Why it matters: the market doesn't always react to news on the day it lands. Sometimes it takes a session for investors to digest the numbers. Want to see how today moved your own holdings? Add your portfolio on Gopexly and check it in your own numbers. Not financial advice, just the close.
Seplat Energy's nine-month results came out today, and the headline for shareholders is the payout: a Q3 dividend of 19 US cents a share, up 58% from the previous quarter. Only 5 cents of that is the core dividend. The other 14 cents is a special dividend. How can a company afford to hand back that much? One quick check is the net debt to EBITDA ratio. How it works: 1. Net debt = total borrowings minus cash in the bank. 2. EBITDA = earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, a rough measure of the cash the business throws off. 3. Divide the first by the second. The answer is roughly how many years of earnings it would take to clear the debt. Lower means debt is less of a burden. For $SEPLAT , net debt fell 65% from $673.3m at the end of 2025 to $234.9m at the end of September. Over the same stretch the ratio dropped from 0.53x to 0.14x. It also repaid a further $100m of debt on 27 October. Add $749m of free cash flow in nine months, and you can see why there's room for a bigger payout. One thing to keep in mind: a special dividend is extra, not a promise. It depends on how much cash is left over, which for an oil producer moves with oil prices and output. Seplat's full-year guidance stays at 45 cents a share, and it has declared 40 cents so far. To qualify for the 19 cents, you need to be on the register by 12 November. Payment is due on or around 27 November. Do you check a company's debt before you look at its dividend? Tell us below 👇 Not financial advice.
Where we start: on Wednesday the All-Share Index fell 0.44% to 252,882.78, taking ₦718.95bn off the market a day after Tuesday's record. 26 stocks rose and 30 fell, and the Banking Index dropped 2.36%. The puzzle this morning is First HoldCo. Its nine-month profit after tax rose 65.1% to ₦744.45bn, yet the stock fell the maximum 10% to ₦139.50. Why would good numbers meet selling? • Net interest income, the core lending business, fell 16% to ₦1.26trn • Much of the profit growth came from fees, recoveries, trading gains and lower impairment charges • ₦228.81bn of other comprehensive losses cut total comprehensive income to ₦515.64bn The lesson: the headline profit isn't the whole story. Investors look at where the profit came from and whether it can repeat. Three things worth watching today: 1. Does First HoldCo find a floor, or keep sliding? A second limit-down day would show the market is still repricing it. 2. $SEPLAT reacts to its results. Nine-month profit after tax rose 142.5% to ₦355.55bn, helped by higher oil prices and production. It declared a Q3 dividend of 19 US cents (5 cents core plus a 14-cent special). Qualification date is Nov 12, and payment is due Nov 27. 3. Can $UBA jumped 6.83% to ₦43 on 38.48m shares, the day's most traded stock, while most banks fell. Want to see how today's moves hit your own holdings? Add your portfolio on Gopexly and follow along. Not financial advice, just what's on the radar.
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