HF narrows losses 99pc in first quarter on low costs

By VICTOR JUMA
More by this Author

Summary

The lender, which is shifting from mortgage finance to mainstream banking, saw its operating and interest expenses drop by double digits.
This helped offset reduced income from lending and transactions.

Companies

HF narrows losses 99pc in first quarter on low costs

Thursday May 28 2020

By VICTOR JUMA
More by this Author

Summary

The lender, which is shifting from mortgage finance to mainstream banking, saw its operating and interest expenses drop by double digits.
This helped offset reduced income from lending and transactions.

HF Group #ticker:HFCK narrowed its losses 99.6 percent to Sh633,000 in the first quarter ended March compared to Sh158.2 million the year before, thanks to lower costs.

The lender, which is shifting from mortgage finance to mainstream banking, saw its operating and interest expenses drop by double digits.

This helped offset reduced income from lending and transactions.

HF’s operating expenses dropped 10.7 percent to Sh827.1 million, partly due to provisioning for bad debt falling 23.4 percent to Sh137.6 million.

The stock of non-performing loans dropped 5.7 percent to Sh12.2 billion, with the company saying the results did not take into account the economic impact of Covid-19 pandemic.

“Due to the short period of the pandemic in Kenya prior to the reporting date, there was insufficient data to analyse the impact of the virus. As a result, the financial statements for the period to March 31, 2020, have not been adjusted with the Covid-19 impact,” HF said in a statement.

“If it is determined that additional impairments are required after assessment of the impact such impairments will be taken into account in subsequent periods.”