{"id":8411,"date":"2012-02-28T14:41:47","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T12:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/02\/update-2-firstrand-plans-africa-growth-as-loans-lift-h1\/"},"modified":"2012-02-28T14:41:47","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T12:41:47","slug":"update-2-firstrand-plans-africa-growth-as-loans-lift-h1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-2-firstrand-plans-africa-growth-as-loans-lift-h1\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 2-FirstRand plans Africa growth as loans lift H1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Normalised EPS up 26 pct<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Net interest income also up 26 pct<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* S.Africa&#8217;s top performing bank stock<\/p>\n<p> (Recasts, adds CEO, analyst)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, Feb 28 (Reuters) &#8211; FirstRand,<br \/>\nSouth Africa&#8217;s No.2 bank, reported a 26 percent rise in<br \/>\nfirst-half profit on strong loan growth, and said it would keep<br \/>\npursuing expansion in other African countries such as Nigeria<br \/>\nand Ghana.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>FirstRand, which already has operations in seven African<br \/>\ncountries, said it aimed to build an investment banking<br \/>\noperation in Nigeria from scratch and buy a smaller retail and<br \/>\ncommercial bank there.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we do acquisitions, they will typically be small to<br \/>\nmedium size,&#8221; Chief Executive Sizwe Nxasana said in an interview<br \/>\nfollowing the bank&#8217;s results.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We wouldn&#8217;t want to spend more than, I would say, 10<br \/>\npercent of our capital on new acquisitions or new<br \/>\nopportunities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The bank ended talks to buy a stake in Nigeria&#8217;s Sterling<br \/>\nBank last year after failing to agree on price.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Normalised EPS up 26 pct * Net interest income also up 26 pct * S.Africa&#8217;s top performing bank stock (Recasts, adds CEO, analyst) By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura JOHANNESBURG, Feb 28 (Reuters) &#8211; FirstRand, South Africa&#8217;s No.2 bank, reported a 26 percent rise in first-half profit on strong loan growth, and said it would keep pursuing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-8411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}