Moroccan billionaire Othman Benjelloun’s Bank of Africa posts $268.1 million in net profit in 9M 2021

Multinational pan-African banking conglomerate, Bank of Africa, reported a 108.2-percent surge in earnings in the first nine months of 2021, as net profit increased to MAD2.48 billion ($268.1 million) driven by strong performance by its core business and marginal commission growth.

Bank of Africa Group, also known as Bank of Africa, is a multinational pan-African banking conglomerate with operations in 18 African countries and a representative office in Paris.

The group operates as a subsidiary of the Moroccan group BMCE (Moroccan Bank of Foreign Commerce) under Moroccan multimillionaire Othman Benjelloun, the bank’s CEO.

In the first nine months of 2021, Bank of Africa posted a significant improvement in its earnings as net profit soared by 108 percent from MAD1.19 billion ($128.6 million) in the first nine months of 2020 to MAD2.48 billion ($268.1 million).

The surge in the banking group’s profit was spurred by management cost-optimization strategies, which translated into reduceed costs and the normalization of the cost of risk, which dropped from MAD2.57 billion ($277.75 million) in 2020 to MAD1.68 billion ($181.6 million).

At the end of the period, the management noted that the bank’s commercial dynamics continued to show sound performance. Customer deposits expanded by three percent, while the group’s loan portfolio strengthened by three percent as a result of a recovery in the bank’s economic activities.

Thanks to its robust financial performance, the bank’s total assets increased from MAD331.91 billion ($35.88 billion) to MAD348.48 billion ($37.7 billion).

As of press time, Nov. 24, shares in the leading financial services group were trading at MAD186.9 ($20.2) per share, 48-basis points higher than their opening price yesterday morning.