FBCH in $10m PTA deal

Published: 25 March 2014

FBC Holdings (FBCH) is finalising a $10 million import facility with PTA Bank (PTA), its chief executive John Mushayavanhu said.

He told businessdaily that it would be available shortly.

"In 2013, we got $15 million from Afrexim Bank, a trade finance line of credit for a year and $8 million from PTA. This loan was fully drawn down and lent to the manufacturing sector," Mushayavanhu added.

He said the group was currently disbursing the Afrexim Bank funds to its exporting clients while an additional $7 million from the Zimbabwe Agricultural Development Trust, functioning as a revolving fund, was being advanced to agro-focused clients.

Mushayavanhu said of the total $40 million syndicated facility from Afrexim Bank, an additional $19 million over subscription would be drawn down shortly, making a total of $59 million.

"For the building society we have $5 million from Shelter Afrique which was lent out for mortgages and another $5 million from PTA," he said.

Meanwhile, the group's profit for the year ended December 2013 decreased to $14,1 million from $15,6 million recorded in prior year.

"This is attributed to the negative performance of the construction-material manufacturing business unit, Turnall Holdings Limited (Turnall)," Mushayavanhu said.

Total net income stood at $79,5 million, seven percent higher from 2012's $74,2 million.

"The level of total net income increase was negatively affected by the mandatory reduction of bank charges and interest margins as was stipulated in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by all the banking institutions and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in January 2013," the FBCH boss said.

The MoU expired in December 2013 and was not renewed.

"Notwithstanding the capping of bank charges to clients, fee and commission income recorded a respectable growth of eight percent to $22,3 million from $20,6 million."

"This was primarily as a result of increased volume of transactions emanating from increased customer acquisitions and the introduction of e-based transactions," said Mushayavanhu.

The contribution of gross profit to total net income decreased to 19 percent in 2013 from 22 percent in 2012 - $15 million from $16 million in value terms - as the manufacturing business absorbed increased production costs, which it could not pass on to customers due to the weak demand.
- dailynews