Nedbank’s Nigerian adventure comes back to bite

Nedbank’s 2025 results are set to take a hit from its stake in Ecobank Transnational, and will see the company’s basic earnings fall by as much as 55%.

On Thursday, 26 February, Nedbank released a trading statement outlining its expected earnings for the 2025 financial year ended 31 December 2025.

This trading update revealed that the bank’s stake in Nigerian-based Ecobank had a notable negative impact on its earnings.

The bank has disposed of its 21.2% shareholding in Ecobank, with the sale of this stake for R1.8 billion concluded in mid-December 2025.

Prior to the sale, Nedbank could recognise the fair value losses and cumulative foreign exchange losses resulting from its Ecobank stake as other comprehensive income. 

However, now that the disposal has been completed, the bank must recognise these losses as profit or loss for the 2025 financial year.

This will see Nedbank’s basic earnings per share fall by between 55% and 52%. In contrast, its headline earnings per share, which exclude these losses, are expected to increase by between 1% and 3%.

Positively, the bank’s net asset value per share price is expected to increase by between 3% and 5%.

However, Nedbank’s return on equity will fall slightly to between 15.3% and 15.5%, down from 15.8% previously.

Nedbank’s Ecobank investment has been a thorn in the bank’s side for years. In the bank’s most recent interim results presentation, CEO Jason Quinn admitted that the bank’s investment case did not materialise as expected.

Nedbank initially invested R6.3 billion in Ecobank and has not seen much in the way of returns over the past few years, ultimately selling its stake for R1.8 billion.

In particular, Quinn said the Nigerian economy’s performance did not turn out to be as strong as originally expected.

In addition, he explained that operating in Nigeria proved to be more difficult than initially anticipated, with Nedbank facing elevated regulatory uncertainty.

Therefore, the bank decided to sell its stake in the Nigerian lender and has shifted its Africa strategy to focus more heavily on East Africa and the Southern African Development Community, marking a new era for Nedbank.

Nedbank’s results for its 2025 financial year are currently expected to be released on Tuesday, 3 March 2026.