Amaechi Raphael Chinedu

@Official_ARC·2h

Access Holdings made 6% more profit. Its shareholders' slice barely moved

Where we start: on Friday the All-Share Index rose 0.09% to a record 254,299.49, ending last week up 2.86% and the year up 63.42% so far. But the gains were narrow: 48 stocks fell last week and only 33 rose. The news this morning is ACCESSCO$ACCESSCO. Access Holdings filed its nine-month results today, and the headline looks solid: profit after tax rose 5.9% to ₦474.17bn, and profit before tax rose 8.3% to ₦667.36bn. Look one line lower and the picture changes: • Profit that belongs to Access shareholders rose only 0.8%, to ₦429.93bn from ₦426.70bn • The rest went to minority shareholders in its subsidiaries, whose share more than doubled to ₦44.24bn • Earnings per share barely moved, ₦8.02 against ₦8.00 a year ago The lesson: "profit" in a headline is the whole group's profit. What a shareholder of the listed company actually earns is the profit attributable to equity holders, and earnings per share. Three things worth watching today: 1. How the market prices those results. Impairment charges, money set aside for bad loans, fell 73.5% to ₦92.91bn, which did a lot of the lifting. Staff costs rose about 20%. 2. Whether $DANGCEM keeps its run. It jumped 27.81% last week, from ₦1,111 to ₦1,420, and carried much of the index's gain. 3. Whether bank stocks find their feet. Access closed Friday at ₦28.60, and the Banking Index fell 3.42% last week even as the wider market rose. 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.