AFC Records $209.7m Profit
- As assets hits $8.56bn mark
BY CHINYERE OBIORA, LAGOS – Africa’s leading infrastructure solutions provider, Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has recorded significant growth in its full year earnings with 26.6 per cent profit to end the 2021 financial year in style.
According to the Corporation, the impressive performance was driven by high impact investments and its strong credit profile despite the COVID-19 pandemic and commodity-driven headwinds impacting the operating environment.
Consequently, the Corporation’s annual profits rose by 26.6 per cent from $165.5 million in 2020 to $209.7 million in 2021, surpassing the $200 million mark for the first time in its 15-year history.
Also, with its total assets growing by 16 per cent to $8.56 billion, the AFC attributed the dramatic increase partly to investments in high impact assets in targeted sectors across Africa.
Additionally, the Corporation leveraged on its investment-grade credit rating and reputation to mobilise finance from international markets to help reduce the continent’s infrastructure deficit.
Addressing Financial Journalists on its performance, the President and Chief Executive Officer of AFC, Mr Samaila Zubairu, said it has been a year of solid progress in our core objectives of building value to Africa’s economies through instrumental infrastructure driving growth and job creation.
“As the proverb goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is today. We have proven over our 15-year history that you can successfully build a track record in infrastructure investment in Africa—and there has never been a better time to do so.”
“AFC’s reach on the continent is now larger than it has ever been, with investments expanding to 35 countries and cumulative disbursements rising by 14 per cent to $9.9 billion against $8.7 billion reported in 2020”, he said.
With Corporation’s membership increasing by five to 33, the President further said that in 2021, about $150 million was invested in developing cashew and cotton integrated industrial parks in Benin Republic and Togo; $200 million corporate facility provided for BUA Industries Limited to construct a Sugar Refinery and Ethanol Plant in Nigeria; and $175 million invested in the Baomahun Gold Project in Sierra Leone.
Similarly, AFC Capital Partners (ACP) opened as an independent asset management business and launched its first product, the Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund, with a target to raise $500 million in 12 months and $2 billion over the next three years for investment in robust energy, transport, buildings and other infrastructure.
He said the year under review also saw AFC successfully launch two new products through the Syndications unit – the A/B Bond and Credit Insured B Loans – both expected to significantly deepen capacity to channel capital from global investment markets into the African continent.
