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Zenith Bank booked N781.5 billion in impairment charges on financial assets in the nine-months (9M) period to September 2025, representing 39.3% of its Full Year (FY) 2024 pre-provision operating profit.
Of this amount, impairments on loans accounted for 98.5% with substantial write-offs, which have also weighed on loans in the 9 Months, 2025 period, data seen by MoneyCentral shows.
Zenith Bank shares have gone nowhere since the 9-months earnings results were released on October 30th, when it traded at N63 per share. It’s at the same levels today (2 months later). The shares have underperformed fellow tier-one names such as GTCO (+55.53%) and First HoldCo (+88.95%) year-to-date.
The stagnation in Zenith Bank’s share price (currently hovering around ₦63.00) following the announcement of its ₦781.5 billion impairment charge reflects a classic “tug-of-war” between value investors and risk-averse institutional players.
The bulk of these impairments stems from reclassifying “Stage 2” loans (loans showing increased risk but not yet defaulted) that were previously shielded by pandemic-era and FX-related regulatory waivers and forbearance.
With these waivers expired as of mid-2025, the “hidden” risks are now fully visible on the balance sheet.
Why Zenith Bank shares are flat over the past 2 months
Zenith Bank’s Profit After Tax (PAT) for 9M 2025 fell by 7.6%, which naturally caps any immediate rally in its shares. Investors are also weighing whether such a massive (N781 billion) charge will lead to a more conservative final dividend for the 2025 fiscal year.
As the tides turn on interest rates with the expected dovishness of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), analysts see Zenith Banks net interest margin (NIM) moderating to an average of 10.0%.
This slowdown in NIM should result in a tempered growth in net interest income (NII) over the next half decade, according to analysts at Cardinal Stone Partners.
Zenith Bank’s gross loans contracted by 8.9% year-to-date (YtD) as at 9M’25, while trading gains took a sharp turn in Q3’25, reversing much of the momentum from earlier in the year.
After recording a N222.4 billion loss in its trading book during the quarter, a stark contrast to the N483.2 billion gain in the second quarter (Q2) of 2025 (which itself was a 21.1x surge from Q1’25), the bank’s cumulative trading gains for 9M’25 moderated to N277.7 billion, down from N467.8 billion in Half Year (H1) 2025.
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