By Odinaka ANUDU

THERE are six disturbing numbers in the full-year 2025 financial statement of First Holdco, the holding company of First Bank of Nigeria. The numbers have kept investors worried, even though they are not outright signs of a bank in distress.

According to the unaudited financial statement, the company reported a loss of N337.540 billion in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2025 after a gain of N185.466 billion in the corresponding period of 2024. Shareholders bore the brunt of the poor performance in Q4, suffering a loss of N407.835 billion over the period.

Impairment loss

Secondly, First Holdco’s income statement revealed that the company suffered N748.125 billion impairment loss for the whole of 2025 and N459.206 billion for the last quarter of 2025. This, in simple terms, means that loans had been granted to entities to the tune of N748.125 billion, but they did not repay them. As a result, Nigeria’s oldest bank decided to write them off within a year.

“You do not impair N748.125 billion in one year,” said one Lagos-based investor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “That is an indictment on the board and the management of FirstHoldco. And these may have been write-offs of decades of bad loans borrowed by individuals who never wanted to pay back.”

FirstHoldco reacts

On Saturday, however, First Holdco Chairman Femi Otedola justified the company’s decision to write off N748 billion in legacy non-performing loans, stating that the move was a deliberate strategy aimed at securing long-term financial stability.

“At First HoldCo, we decided to clean house properly. We took a huge one-time hit of N748bn to admit old bad loans instead of pretending they do not exist. That is why profit appears to have crashed by 92 per cent. Painful headline, but it is a serious long-term move,” he wrote.

“Why do this now? Because the @cenbank is pushing banks to stop kicking problems down the road. So First HoldCo basically closed the chapter on messy loans from past years, which sends a clear message that borrowing has consequences and it helps rebuild trust.”

Otedola said the key point was that the business itself was still strong, having made N2.96 trillion in interest income and N1.91 trillion in net interest income, which gave it the strength to take the clean-up and still stay standing.

In a response on X to  Otedola, however, one netizen, Olujide Olusola, asked, “Who took those loans and refused to pay back? Why are AMCON, EFCC, and other bodies not hunting them down to repay the loans?”

Another netizen added, “Who are the customers who own this bad N748bn? The shareholders of First HoldCo deserve to know those who ate into their assets this deeply.”

But neither  Otedola nor First Holdco’s spokespersons provided explanations on other investors’ worries, including bulging operating and maintenance expenses or huge income tax.

Other operating expenses

The third number that worries investors from the First Holdco’s financial statement is the ‘other operating expenses.’ Ordinarily, this should not worry anybody, but the size of the expenses is a source of concern. The financial statement shows that other operating expenses jumped 44 per cent to N809.362 billion in full-year 2025, from N563.706 billion reported in the corresponding period of 2024.

“What is the component of this mammoth number? To put this huge amount as ‘other operating cost’ does not sit well with me,” said a Lagos-based investment analyst, who pleaded anonymity. “It needed to be disaggregated to show investors what constitutes the costs. That is what transparency implies.”

Income tax conundrum

Similarly, the group paid an income tax of N176.344 billion in the full-year 2025, as against N132.977 billion in the corresponding period of 2024. While the tax might have emanated from disallowable expenses, prior period adjustments, or deferred tax write-offs, analysts are wondering why a company whose shareholders suffered humongous losses in Q4 (N407.835 billion) would agree to pay that amount of tax over a year. Some say the company should have paid less than half of the tax, considering the circumstances in which it found itself.

Maintenance cost

More so, First Holdco is spending a lot of money on keeping assets that may have reached their zenith alive. In 2025, it spent N151.164 billion on the maintenance of those assets after burning N134.76 billion on those assets in 2024. Financial analysts say this amounts to wasting money on assets that are not yielding sufficient revenue to cover the cost of their maintenance, wondering why the company did not outrightly write them off to save costs.

“This should have been written off,” said a former banker and financial analyst, Abimbola Ojudu. “You do not keep maintaining assets that aren’t yielding anything.”

This is republished from Economy Post, read  it here.