Equity Group Holdings PLC reported strong Q1 2026 financial results with a 16% balance sheet growth to 3.04 trillion shillings, 31% profit before tax growth to 24.5 billion shillings, and 24% profit after tax growth to 19.1 billion shillings. The group's strategic priorities include geographic diversification (52% of earnings outside Kenya), product capability diversification (non-funded income at 40%, insurance at 59% growth), and expansion into 15 countries by 2030 following trade routes. Key growth areas include trade finance, global ecosystem building for agricultural products, value addition in mining (particularly in DRC), and fintech innovation. The group emphasizes resilience through technology adoption, fortress balance sheets, and human capital development to navigate economic shocks.
Deep Dive
Prerequisite Knowledge
- No data available.
Where to go next
- No data available.
Deep Dive
Equity Group Holdings PLC Q1 2026 Investor Briefing & Release of Financial ResultsAdded:
So, that that's say at the group level, it's also visiting the clients. So, there's been multiple uh visits to multiple markets over the last few months to ensure that we continue to calibrate what we the solutions that we have to obviously meet that continuous need, not just now, but also into the future. Thank you, James. Uh thank you very much. Eva, products are not adequate unless you have a platform uh to enable payments.
Uh Eva is our director group director for payments.
Thanks. Thanks, James. Indeed, cross-border trade can only be fulfilled if if last mile payments have been enabled. And we have diversity when it comes to our payments offerings, both proprietary and and and partner solutions. We have I think quite proud to have our own proprietary cross-border solutions. As well as we're now a member of Paps, we we know you know, what Paps is trying to bridge when it comes to cross-border trade across the region.
But also, most importantly is being able to deliver payments in simple, safe, secure, and affordable ways. So, as we go into a technology-led model, that's what's our promise to to to the African continent is, being able to offer this on a single platform with all the diversity that exists.
Uh thank you very much. So, Joshua, you can see we can partner in many many touch points so as to facilitate trade.
But may I say the big one, Joshua, we and I'm championing this because I am a strong believer infrastructure is everything. It is a digital public infrastructure to modernize uh the um our economies and to give visibility to everybody in Africa who wants to do trade. So, if we are get our governments to implement digital public infrastructure, primarily interoperable system, our data regulations, more importantly, digital IDs that really uh validate who one is, then we could see more and more of trade. If we could layer our credit scoring on top of all these digital public infrastructure and behavioral scoring, uh then that would really verify the capability, the competence of a person, and we could do trade uh with each other like we know each other forever uh because of the information that would be in um a person's um uh citizen's uh citizen wallet uh that uh uh builds the digital ID. So, uh it's it's imperative uh that we be able to do this. If we create innovative layer on public digital infrastructure with a bias uh towards trade facilitation and particularly movement of documents, uh then that becomes easier. Of course, we will require reforms uh which we are also uh focusing on uh to allow cross-border trade with limited uh inhibitions.
Um the second question come from Moses Awase Tech.
Uh is Young Africa Works Kenyan training program still available? Uh those trainings were very impactful to our businesses. Uh Dr. John.
Okay, thank you very much uh Dr. Mwangi and thanks uh for the question from Oasis Tech.
The Young Africa Works program was one of our very successful and flagship programs in enterprise development and financial literacy within the foundation. It's a 5-year program that started in 2019 uh where we partnered with Mastercard Foundation targeting to create a total of 810,000 jobs over the the 5-year period.
We were very pleased upon reflection as at the close of the program uh last year to have noted that the program was able to create over 2.5 million jobs pretty much triple the target or beyond triple the target of what had been aspired in terms of job creation for young people with a focus on young women specifically.
Beyond that, when we look at it in terms of how much it was able to fuel in terms of enterprise growth for those MSMEs, we saw a 65 times multiplication in terms of the investment that had been put into that program versus what it was able to open up in terms of um access to finance to to drive these MSMEs.
In summary, over the 5-year period, the program was able to avail a total to date of 450 441 billion Kenyan shillings for those MSMEs which have continued to grow. Beyond the close of the program, of course, as we transition to its second phase, we've continued to see um reach to these MSMEs grow. As at the close of the program, we had impacted 720,000 MSMEs, but since the close of the program and to date, that number has since grown to over 1 million. It's currently at 1 million and 19 MSMEs that have been reached through the program. So, given the success, uh it only goes without saying that now we are looking at it to say, when we speak about um financial inclusion and reaching populations that were previously excluded, goes without saying that we are now designing phase two to say how can we be more inclusive, how can we continue to promote the growth of those MSMEs through our three-tiered program on entrepreneurship education, financial literacy, and then digital literacy as well. Thank you.
Uh thank you very much. Those numbers are mind-boggling. Uh trained 980, lent 670,000.
They each created an average of four to five jobs, and that created over 3.1 million jobs, and we lent 5.1 billion US dollar. The program has continued. We are scaling it because that was piloting and de-risking, and now we are we are we have institutionalized it within the foundation and the uh the branch the subsidiaries, and we are also looking for partners to be able to take it to the next level to try and convert the demographics into demographic dividends, creating job creators, creating entrepreneurs, and creating employers. Um to the chief pharmacist, if you can take the floor, uh the question is how far has Equity Group progressed with its plan to produce pharmaceutical products to support the Equity Afia hospitals?
Uh good morning. So, with the Equity Afia hospitals or the primary care clinics that we do, we are in the process of doing the backward integration working with the manufacturers directly, and it's a phase-wise approach. What we are doing is we're actually working with our current local manufacturers in Kenya and in East Africa, and identifying what are the products they're making and we are largest consumer in our formulary to have the locally manufactured products and we're in dialogue to do the economies of scale. For the manufacturing, it's about the economies of scale and we're working with them to identify the volumes of the key essential drugs that are used in our primary care clinics and also in the country, identifying what are the opportunities within the country, working with also the ministry to be able to see how we can work with them and see what are the Kenya national strategic programs for the local manufacturing so that we can also have a seat there and identify what are the molecules we want to make in the country, in the region. Also, we are in the working with the governments outside Kenya as well. We're working with Indian governments as well because 90% of the pharmaceuticals that come into the African continent are manufactured in India. So, we're also in to identify opportunities to local manufacturing in the continent and the bank has been aggressively supporting the local manufacturers in the region to enable them to procurement of the equipment, de-risking their investments so that we can actually make this country ready.
So, it is definitely a phase-wise approach and we are hopeful that by 2030 we should be able to help the pharmaceutical be part of the manufacturing ARP initiative and we are working towards that.
Uh maybe if I make it clear a little bit.
We have 154 Equity Afia clinics. They are seeing 100 200,000 patients per month. We have become the largest consumer of pharmaceutical products in the region.
Uh to increase that consumption to a level we could be able to negotiate for contract manufacturing or to manufacture ourselves.
We are working to open up independent 1,000 pharmacies.
The first pharmacy, that is the pilot pharmacy, has opened. Uh, so that we could be able to aggregate and then bring affordability of pharmaceutical products at scale at country level. Such that you are able to get them from Equity Afia or our 1,000 pharmacies. The ambition is to reduce the the cost of commodities by between 60 and 80% through contract.
And that's why we're looking at even global manufacturers. So, that that's hopefully uh, is the click say and then but it needs to be done differently. I think there's a question uh, from Balon Moris Kiome uh, to me about 2030 being in 15 countries. Which countries?
Uh, Jimmy Bogo, uh, Citizen TV asked the same question and when.
As it's open secret that we want to be in 15 countries by 2030.
And it's also open that we adopt a clipping strategy to expand because we follow trade routes. And if you look at our first country was Uganda because we had the highest traffic on the that route in terms of trade. Then we went to Tanzania, to Rwanda, to South Sudan. And when DLC joined the East African community, it became the biggest traffic between Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania. So, we went there.
We have seen the construction of the Lobito Corridor linking Angola and DRC. Given that we have become systemic at 24% market share in DRC, Equity is controlling maybe us 24% of the trade. That corridor makes Angola attractive. But, that corridor also extends to Zambia and Mozambique because of Tanzania the Tazara railway line is being rehabilitated because of the trade volume, because of commodities. So, those three countries become countries of great interest. And we all know that we are completely interlinked with Ethiopia. We've been in Ethiopia with our rep office for the last um uh 7 years. So, again Ethiopia. So, I would rank those as the top priority because of the trade route. And then if we get into those countries, we'll see where else the trade routes leads us because we still have 5 years uh to go.
Uh Brent, a question from you uh from George Joshua of Mida and uh strong Q1 results.
Which investment areas does the group see as the biggest drivers of long-term growth and shareholder value?
Let me bring out maybe three points from our results that one should observe in terms of answering that question. So, the first point is growth momentum as James mentioned, and this momentum is underpinned largely by our ability to replicate what we've done in Kenya in the other subsidiaries.
So, the growth momentum that you're seeing and that will drive long-term growth and shareholder value is the geographic diversification that you've seen over the number of years, and as James mentioned, this this will continue into new markets.
So, 52% of our earnings are now outside of Kenya, and importantly, you'll notice in the presentation that those subsidiaries outside of Kenya is growing 34% profit after tax.
This is compared and and but bear in mind also Kenya is still growing at uh 14% or 21% uh profit after tax.
What is also important to appreciate with the growth momentum and Terrence and Brendan in terms of trade finance, treasury, what we're doing in payments with Eva, is productivity and capability diversification.
So, just to give you some numbers, non-funded income contributing 40% growing at 14% and within that you'll see diversification in capabilities in terms of insurance growing 59% profit uh in terms of 59% revenue FX revenue growing 24% and fee and commission income growing 28%.
So, our allocation of resources and capital into geographies, into different product suites reflect our ability to create shareholder value. There is an upfront cost that comes to this.
There was a lot of uh hesitation in our allocation of capital into the DRC.
DRC is now contributing uh a third of the business and generating higher returns uh will generate or has generated higher returns than Kenya if you look at the 2025 results.
Now, what is also important is the ability to preserve the shareholder value and that speaks to the risk management that we putting in place. But also speaks to the fortress balance sheet that we currently have in such an environment that we operating in. So, you'll see our liquidity levels, our capital position has sufficient buffers for us to weather any of the shocks while we grow the business.
And then thirdly is around what one would call latent value. James mentioned that we sitting with a lot of liquidity. If you look at our proportion of loans, we have significant capacity to continue lending to customers.
And again, this speaks to the business model that we have put in place. So, the biggest drivers of shareholder value is the ability of management to weather the storms, more importantly in terms of downside risk, but importantly of growing the value is our ability to replicate what we've done in markets like Kenya into new regions. So, we believe expanding into new markets, putting investment into new product capabilities including what we looking to do on the technology front with a lot of investment there, will deliver a higher returns and dividends going forward as well.
Uh, thank you very much, Brent. Apeli Twajilo uh, asks which specific sectors in Equity currently is Equity currently most bullish on for lending and why? And what are some of the measures you're taking to bring up the non-funded income stream? I think that we have answered.
So, which areas are we really the bullish?
We all are aware of the African recovery and resilient plan is our framework that demonstrates the opportunities on the African continent. A majority of our people are in trade, so we are very strong in facilitating trade using creative trade finance instruments, treasury instruments. So, trade is very very important because that's where the bulk of the people are. The second area that we have really focused on is um uh creating global ecosystems for the products that we produce.
And we have seen good fast tea, and we know what we have done with the French government. We've been able to establish the European market for specialty tea uh through France. We're doing the same uh the global market for coffee through Italy, livestock through Italy, through partnerships that links our producers with a global consumer uh through established ecosystems. We are facilitating those ecosystems, and we'd like to have our SMEs populate those ecosystem. And that is a huge area. We're helping um livestock, those in the leather industry to acquire uh equipment um uh for the leather industry supported uh with financing from Italy and linked to the uh to the off-take uh arrangement that we have made on leather. So, that level of ecosystem building, global ecosystem, linking our producers uh to uh the the producer or the to the market and removing the brokers.
That is an area we are breeding really funding. The other area that we all know is agriculture.
And we saw the contradiction that we were only giving 3% of our loan book to agriculture when agriculture was contributing 30% and we felt that that was why agriculture was not transforming fast enough. It was not modernizing enough.
I'm glad that at the group level we're now nearly 11% of our entire loan book in agriculture, but we're very very proud of Kenya, which is now at 16% of its entire loan book. But in agriculture is the entire value chain from production to agro processing and populating global ecosystems. So, that's how we are doing.
Of great interest and which we have done with a lot of pride is going to DRC and challenging Congolese to also become act active participants in the mining industry. And I'm glad that we have received a proposal and analyzed and approved a proposal of $400 million to set the first Congolese owned mine mining such that we are actively participating in the entire ecosystem. I think the biggest contribution we have made in DRC is value addition on its mineral resources. We entered when we entered copper in DRC copper was being sold as an all.
We then went to sheets, we are at cathode and power generation for those plants.
So, the question a lot of to make value addition to be done in Kenya. So, agricultural produce, agro-processing, minerals, manufacturing to produce the final product. It's our hope that we shall see the strategic minerals being processed in Africa and specifically in DRC. We're supporting um and we uh signed up with the World Bank uh to really sponsor uh the development of uh Inga Dams uh to generate power to allow DRC to do value addition on its strategic minerals. So, essentially, it's all areas of value addition, all areas of production, all areas of trade.
But, of significant importance is to support also social investment in health and education because that determines the quality of the human capital, the productivity of the human capital, and that explains why we're in pharmaceuticals, why we're in education, uh across the board including financing universities. Uh the last one is the fintech space, and that's where uh the um I'm very, very proud that we've been able to start our first uh uh um hub um to facilitate innovations. And we are learning how to finance IPs um as much as uh and venture studios so that we can lead it up into talent. And uh I'm sure you also uh when uh we focused during the last week's uh summit um part of the sponsors of the concert where we launched uh our African creative um uh in African initiative so that we can find talent. We use talent so that our young people are farther to lead and drive innovations that are built around their talent and capability.
Mokaya, I think the same question.
Zambia, Mozambique, Angola, we've confirmed our vision in terms of timing.
We prefer mergers and acquisitions. So, that timing is when the opportunity crystallizes and when we are happy with an opportunity. Um and uh uh very impressive first quarter. Do I expect higher dividend this year? Uh naturally that would be the expectations.
But as usual, we commit, we affirm that we will abide by the policy.
And because Mokaya, you have asked when are we entering the four countries. If it happens to be this year, then we would do we will guarantee you the 30%.
But how much more we can pay will be uh the trade-off between investment and but as we said, we're very well capitalized. We're in a position to progressively, dynamically meet the expectations of our staff.
It seems that oh very good, there's a question. Uh and in that manufacturing uh concept, where are we while disbursing most? We have formed a significant partnership uh with um the Chinese investors in this region.
And we're really maybe the Chinese team can take the mic and uh explain a little bit how you are getting uh our customers populate the supply chains of the Chinese companies because undoubtedly if you look at um Lirongwe Musami Road uh the entire uh 150 billion plus project for its completion, we need a lot of uh SMEs to populate that entire project uh uh value chain. So, we have become specific. Those two colleagues uh fluent in in uh Chinese understand the Chinese culture, and I'm really glad 80% of uh the Chinese companies operating in DRC, uh we are their bankers. We take a lot of pride, but our greatest pride is when we get them to partner with our customers. Uh and uh get them in the value chain.
How are we doing in that area?
Okay. Uh thank you, Dr. Mongi. Uh my name is Claire, and I'm from China Desbise uh China Desbise Business. Um currently, we are we are a group of four, but uh we have ambitious to grow this business. Um we have unboarded uh over about 5,000 uh corporates, SMEs, and uh uh Chinese uh individuals. And uh um we are uh good in trade, manufacturing, construction, and the real estate. Uh currently, we have a a balance sheet of uh about 20 billion and in in assets and liabilities and 10 billion funded assets and the 20 billion unfunded assets. And especially on the real estate side, we have onboarded over 100 real estate developers. And they built over 100,000 units per annum and we have a market share of 80%.
Thank you.
Thank you, Claire. Um Dr. Mwangi, allow me to say in our way, "Ni hao."
That's how we say good morning. "Ni hao."
Yeah, so in line with what you're doing, especially in the group, and in line with the Belt and Road Initiative, and also the Lapsset project going to Ethiopia all the way, I think also the Chinese using the Silk Road also on the on line to to support this.
So, my team and I, we we are happy through the leadership of KG and Bagenda to also support the group. Thank you.
Uh thank you very much.
Two questions uh Linda Eileen uh And the question is on capital allocation to investment funds.
I Linda, I would like to invite you to speak to uh Richard uh asset manager uh MD for the asset management or Mushai uh MD for the investment bank uh for a forecast conversation on our investment in funds. Uh David Kato, we'd like to know about uh the issuance of shares at Equity Bank.
And uh Katto, Equity shares are listed in the Nairobi Stock Exchange. We're the largest bank by market uh uh capitalization in the Nairobi Stock Exchange.
And uh uh easily buy shares from uh any broker. Our investment bank can support you.
Uh Katto, and we can also our custody business should also be able to support you.
Uh let me close uh by revisiting the P&L or the income statement, Alex. If you're able to project uh um uh that. And uh broadly if we look at not the guidance, but uh uh the financial statement. Uh we Our balance sheet has grown by 16% uh from 1.7 trillion up to 3.04 uh trillion. A 16% growth. It has been driven by uh deposit growth, uh which have grown by 13% from 1.3 trillion uh to nearly 1.5 uh trillion. Our shareholders' funds have increased by 30% from 200 and 65 billion to 244 more uh uh billion shillings. And that 25% of that uh 344 billion is what gives us our single lending obligor. When you look at the P&L, our um intra net interest income have grown by 15% from 28.6 billion to 33 billion shillings while our non-funded income has grown by 14% from 19.6 billion to 22.3 billion giving us total income growth of 15% from 48 billion to 55 billion shillings. And we look at profit before tax have grown by 31% from 18.7 billion shillings to 24.5 billion shillings.
And then our profit after tax have grown by 24% from 15.4 billion to 19.1 billion.
Earnings per share has grown by 24% from 3.9 shillings to 4.9 shillings. So that broadly is the summary of the performance of the Equity Group for the first quarter and for a year on year of for the year ended 31st March. I can see there is one more question. Please.
Okay, thank you for the presentation Dr. James Mwangi. My name is Timon Rimba from the trading room and I have three questions.
Two domestic, one international.
But the regional one has been settled.
The first one is credit pricing, the implementation of the risk-based credit pricing. What's the update on that? And then the second one, the group has identified two risks, The key external risks of the oil shock and the fiscal pressures.
What is the impact of that on group revenue for the year? And to add another intervening variable, elections are near or they're not near the periphery, but also on the horizon.
What is the impact of that on the group revenue? And how does that map to the insurance?
The third question, which was international, has been settled. It was about the ambition of 2030, 100 million customers.
The candidate strategies, organic or inorganic, and the candidate countries for that expansion. Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much. I think Alex, let's get to the ratios. I think that will give But let me be answering your question, uh you know, uh their ambition of this group is to be the leading uh Pan-African bank that understand the needs of Africans, that understand the African terrain, that understand the nuances uh and the culture of the people. If you look, uh we owe our success to developing a banking model uh that bank to those who had been condemned as unbankable, those who were excluded. And that is why we feel that we have a huge opportunity to expand so that we provide what is uniquely African architected and built to answer to our specific needs as a society.
And that also explains why we have been very successful. We have been able to replicate ourselves in whichever market we go and become systemic, irrespective of what people think of the East African challenges. Why? Because we are market-driven.
Uh we respond to the needs. And that's why we want to do it gradually uh systematically.
And that's why the ambition of um 15 countries. The impact of um uh the gov- the elections.
Uh we are 40 year old. And if you take uh 40 years, we the cycle of 5 years election cycles, we have seen eight elections. And we have come to understand what elections mean, how to navigate that cycle.
Since 2016, we have uh really um been able to survive uh six shocks. The first one was interest capping 2016 to 2023.
The second shock was the COVID shock.
The third uh shock was the dis- disruption of supply chains by COVID COVID added two.
Uh a health pandemic uh on one hand uh disrupting people and their life, and then disruption of supply chain as a for uh third shock. Then came Ukraine last year, which led into an energy crisis, a food crisis leading both uh to leading to uh the worst uh macroeconomic environment since the '70s, where interest rates went extremely high, inflation global inflation went very very high, volatility in currencies went um and what we have learned is how to manage shocks. We are now we then went to the crisis of Israel Palestine and now we are dealing with Iran Middle East crisis.
And now what we said, how do we build resilience?
But we normalize shocks.
We say shocks are part and parcel of what we have to manage.
And we are managing that one using technology because technology helps us to be agile.
We are managing that by managing our balance sheet making the balance sheet very resilient and we said using capital buffers, using asset quality and the way we manage assets, using our liquidity, but more importantly investing in human capital that whose productivity is significant, is able to use the tools, technological tools of AI. So we expect that that capability to manage shocks is what will will continue to use.
Early warnings are very very strong. Like the area that we have really focused on is trade, our oil trade and all that are likely to be disrupted. So how do you deal with that? Our fertilizers are likely to be disrupted. How do you deal with that? Elections come and go and we try to ensure we support our communities with the resilience that we have been able to build. So that's broadly how we are managing um and helping customers to manage shocks as they become, but we have assumed shock management is now no more way of managing the environment. The shocks that we are receiving both political particular geopolitical considerations, economic shocks, legal shocks, technological shocks, macroeconomic shocks. So, we have to build templates on how to manage that and we have responded most by structuring our balance sheet to make it agile to bed to these shocks. And we have said that balance sheet if you look is very liquid, heavily capitalized and structured to be agile.
Thank you very much for those four great questions.
Alex, thank you very much for the opportunity to present to our investors, to the analyst and the public. Thank you very much.
>> [applause] >> Thank you, Dr. Mwangi. And again, want to thank all of you for for joining us here physically.
And for those who are following us online, the investor booklet is already uploaded on our website together with financial results as well as the press release and our team of investor relations is still available to answer your questions. There will be an investors call and we share the details in your respective emails.
I want to request all of us to be upstanding for the Equity Anthem and then final prayers. Once again, thank you for joining us today.
God bless. The Equity anthem.
Equity >> [music] [singing] [music] [music and singing] [music] [music] >> Equity >> [music] [music] [music] >> Equity >> [music] [music] [music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music] [music] [music and singing] [music] >> Equity equity bank >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> We're any member.
>> [music] >> equity [singing] equity >> [music] [music] >> I'm any member.
You're any member.
>> [music] >> equity equity >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> equity equity [music] >> [music] >> I'm any member.
You're any member.
>> [music and singing] [music] >> Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for guiding us through this meeting and for blessing us our time together.
Lord, as we prayed, we are grateful for your faithfulness, your goodness, and your mercy.
Lord, as we look forward to the year 2026, we continue to commit ourselves to you, that the Lord you may guide us in every decision.
We pray for discernment in every season and clarity when the way in is un- uncertain.
Lord, be our light, direct our paths, and help us to walk with your purpose.
Lord, we pray that you may continue to release divine ideas, creative solutions, and strategies that will create value to the customers we serve and all the stakeholders in the business.
We want to thank you, Lord, for our investors, shareholders.
We thank you for the service providers and all who partner with us in growing this business.
Bless us indeed and enlarge our territory, increase our influence and expand our reach. Strengthen us, Lord, even as we continue to steward the resources that you have entrusted to us.
Lord, as we leave for this meeting and for the rest of the day, help us to walk in diligence, integrity, and unity, and let our work bear fruit. Bless us and bless all our customers and all the members of the organization. And now the Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May he lift his countenance and on you and give you peace. And the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit be with you now and always.
God bless you.
Related Videos
The #1 Reason Your Top People Keep Leaving (How to Fix It)
Entreleadership
470 views•2026-05-29
What Happens After A Motorcycle Dealership Shuts Down?
FastestWay.1
374 views•2026-05-29
The Evolution of DSP's Pokemon Unpack-ack-acking Grift
Toxicity_Unmasked
2K views•2026-05-29
Help re-structure my finances, I want to buy a house, save and invest
JennNxumalo
2K views•2026-05-29
Asian Paints Q4 Results: Revenue Beats Estimates, 5 Key Takeaways For Investors
NDTVProfitIndia
111 views•2026-05-29
Trying to Afford Vancouver on a Single Income | $2,550 Mortgage
chelseaspursuit
308 views•2026-05-28
Are you busy but still feeling broke?
TaraWagner
305 views•2026-06-01
7 Nigerian Stocks That Could Explode Because of Dangote Refinery IPO
femiakinwale9269
478 views•2026-05-29











