FirstHoldCo Plc has posted an impressive financial performance for the first quarter of 2026, recording a major recovery after restructuring its balance sheet in 2025. The company reported a profit before tax of ₦321.12 billion, representing a huge increase from ₦186.48 billion recorded during the same period in 2025.
The strong result marks a major comeback for the parent company of Nigeria’s oldest commercial bank, positioning it once again among the country’s top-performing financial institutions.
The bank’s recovery followed a difficult restructuring phase in 2025 when it cleared a large amount of bad loans and non-performing assets from its books. During that process, the group took an impairment charge of about ₦826.3 billion to clean up historical debt issues and improve the quality of its balance sheet.
That strategic decision now appears to be paying off.
With its latest results, FirstHoldCo has emerged as the second most profitable bank in Nigeria by profit before tax, behind only Zenith Bank. Zenith Bank posted ₦360.91 billion in profit before tax during the same period, while GTCO reported ₦302.89 billion, Access Holdings recorded ₦272.2 billion, and UBA posted ₦160.65 billion.
Industry analysts believe the company’s strong growth is not only linked to Nigeria’s high interest-rate environment but also to management’s deliberate efforts to rebuild the bank’s financial structure. The Central Bank of Nigeria has maintained a tight monetary policy stance, keeping the Monetary Policy Rate at 26.5 percent in a bid to control inflation.
One of the biggest highlights of FirstHoldCo’s performance is its Return on Equity, a key indicator used to measure how effectively a company generates profit from shareholders’ investments.
For the first quarter of 2026, the bank achieved a Return on Equity of 31.6 percent, a sharp improvement from the 4.6 percent recorded at the end of 2025. This performance placed the company ahead of other major banks in the FUGAZ group despite ongoing recapitalisation efforts across the banking sector.
The company’s revenue growth was driven largely by increased lending to customers. FirstHoldCo generated ₦465.6 billion in interest income from loans and advances, reflecting a 27.8 percent increase compared to the previous year.
Unlike some competitors that rely heavily on investments in government securities, the bank focused more on private sector lending, helping it secure stronger earnings from customer loans.
Operational efficiency also improved significantly. The bank’s Cost-to-Income Ratio dropped from 53.8 percent in late 2025 to 45.2 percent in the first quarter of 2026. Although GTCO and Zenith Bank still recorded stronger efficiency levels, FirstHoldCo performed better than Access Holdings and UBA in this area.
Despite operating expenses increasing by over 21 percent to ₦297.6 billion, the bank managed to grow earnings at a faster pace, showing strong financial discipline.
Another major improvement came from debt recoveries. Loan recoveries rose sharply from ₦1 billion in Q1 2025 to ₦19 billion in Q1 2026, representing a 1,570 percent increase. The bank said this was made possible by aggressive recovery efforts following the write-off of bad loans last year.
FirstHoldCo’s total assets stood at ₦26.8 trillion as of March 2026, showing that the institution remains financially stable and well-positioned for future growth.
With stronger profitability, improved efficiency, and a cleaner balance sheet, analysts believe FirstHoldCo is entering a new growth phase that could help close its valuation gap with other top-tier Nigerian banks in the coming months.
