Nigeria’s Oldest Bank Hits N3 Trillion Market Value as Shares Jump on Q1 Earnings

First HoldCo Plc, Nigeria’s oldest banking group, crossed the N3 trillion market capitalisation mark on Friday for the first time, after investors reacted to a first-quarter earnings performance that signalled a rebound from last year’s profit slump.

Data from the Nigerian Exchange Limited showed that shares of the parent company of First Bank rose by 9.98 percent, lifting its market value to N3.01 trillion from N2.74 trillion on Thursday, making it the third most valuable banking group in Africa’s most populous nation.

The rally followed the release of the group’s first-quarter 2026 results, which showed profit after tax climbed by 56.6 percent to N267.8 billion from N171.1 billion in the corresponding period of 2025.

The strong quarterly performance marks a recovery from a difficult 2025 financial year, when the lender posted its weakest earnings in eight years after taking a significant one-off hit from legacy non-performing loans, highlighting the cost of cleaning up impaired assets accumulated over the years.

According to its audited financial statements released on Friday, profit after tax plunged by 92.1 percent to N52.8 billion in 2025 from N663.5 billion in 2024. The last time the group reported earnings lower than last year’s figure was in 2017, when profit stood at N47.7 billion.