The Home Finance Company (HFC) Limited on Thursday announced a profit after tax of 8.8 billion cedis for 2002 and 48 cedis per share as dividend to shareholders. Kwadwo Duku, Chairman of the Board of Directors, said at the company's Annual General Meeting (AGM) that the profit is 16.1 per cent up on 2001. It paid 45 cedis as dividend in that year.

Directors and shareholders have also approved the payment of 6,000 dollars per annum to the Chairman of the Board of Directors and 4,800 dollars per annum to the Directors due to increased responsibilities.

Duku said the mortgage portfolio, which had been the lifeblood of the company, increased from 186.5 billion in 2001 to 197.9 billion in 2002 while total assets increased from 274.7 billion cedis in 2001 to 349.8 billion cedis last year. He said this profit margin had made it possible to increase the dividend.

Duku said given the context of the global economy and the challenges faced internally, the Ghanaian economy achieved a modest level of stability in 2002 with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 4.5 per cent. He said the management team of HFC continued to be strong adding that the staff would continue to undergo professional training programmes in preparation for the challenging business opportunities ahead.

Mrs Stephanie Baeta-Ansah, Managing Director of HFC, said from a business base of home loans, HFC is proud to have become a strong financial services company geared to provide efficient service at competitive prices to individuals as well as corporate bodies. She said commercial loans in line with the commercial mortgage business mentioned to shareholders at last year's AGM, would provide the needed diversification in an environment where house prices denominated in US dollars were still unaffordable to most resident Ghanaians, due to low incomes.

Mrs Baeta-Ansah said the company's customer deposits increased from 15.9 billion cedis to 33.5 billion cedis with an exceptional income of 436.7 million cedis being realized from the sale of a residential property at East Airport. She said the Union Bank of Nigeria (UBN), formerly Barclays Bank, has expressed interest to purchase the entire 20 million new shares approved by shareholders.

"At the same time management continues to seek other investors in its equity and debt instruments," Mrs. Baeta added. A statement from the company said the UBN had acquired 20 per cent shareholding in the company resulting in an increase to over 76.5 billion cedis of the shareholders' fund. It said the UBN was one of the largest banks in Nigeria with 270 branches.