By InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Pan-African lender, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), parent company of the Ecobank Group on Tuesday issued a ‘profit warning’ for its 2015 audited year end.

ETI in an issuer’s announcement with the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) said it expects to report materially lower profit for the year ended 2015, driven by a number of factors which it says include the macroeconomic challenges faced by most African economies, lower crude oil prices, depreciating currencies, monetary and fiscal bottlenecks, due to global developments, negatively impacted expected revenue growth. “Thus, revenue growth for 2015 will be below our target guidance,’ the pan-African lender added.

Other factors ETI affirmed include higher impairment losses on loans which were recognised in the last quarter of 2015 across the Bank’s loan portfolio. “Key actions have been implemented to strengthen our credit risk management processes,” ETI said.

“As a result, our revised growth targets communicated during our third quarter 2015 analysts and investor conference call for deposits and loans will not be achieved. We also expect our efficiency and asset quality metrics to be worse than targets,” the Bank disclosed.

ETI says based on the aforementioned, it expect its full year 2015 profit in US dollar terms to be lower than the nine-months to 2015 reported profit.

The pan-African lender plans to announce its audited financial results for full year 2015 in April and follow with an analysts and investor conference call to discuss the financial results.

Ecobank further affirmed it remains confident in its diversified business model and the long-term prospects for growth in Africa and share equal confidence in its dedicated staff. “We are positioning the company for long-term success to achieve sustainable good results,” it added.

The Bank said it continues to enjoy the support of its major shareholders.