During the first half of 2023, Nigeria's seven most profitable publicly-listed enterprises included five banks, a telecommunications company, and a cement maker.

Seven businesses, United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), Zenith Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Holding Company, Dangote Cement Plc, FBN Holdings Plc, MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, and Access Holdings Plc, managed to withstand the harsh economic conditions of sharply rising prices for fuel and diesel, sharply rising inflation, and depreciating nairas.

In the six months leading up to June 2023, the enterprises reported a collective profit before taxes of N1.89 trillion.

The global trend where technology and energy businesses lead the pack of lucrative corporations is considerably different from banks leading the list of most profitable companies.

The enhanced profitability of Nigerian banks has been ascribed by analysts to increases in revaluation of their net long US dollar income holdings.

The willing buyer, willing seller model was reinstated on June 14, 2023, when the Central Bank of Nigeria combined all foreign exchange markets into the Investors and Exporters window.

Consequently, the official exchange rate went up to N747.8/$ today from N463.38/$ yesterday.

Senior lecturer at Baze University Tochukwu Okafor ascribed the banks' financial performance to the naira's depreciation. He emphasized that a large percentage of the assets held by tier-one banks are denominated in dollars, and the majority of them have international links. According to him, this devaluation has caused company revenues to rise significantly.

Seldom has a bank in the history of banking reported profits of up to N400 billion per year, not even in a half-year. However, banks' claimed Earnings in the first half of 2023 significantly Increased as a result of the devaluation and the switch from a fixed to a freely floating currency rate, he said.

He claimed that non-interest income is mostly responsible for this rise in profitability. Fees, commissions, off-balance sheet transactions, and other non-interest revenue streams have been impacted by the devaluation and now account for a sizable portion of the banks' increased earnings.

"Their financial statements show that non-interest income makes up a sizable portion of their profits, and this portion has increased recently," Okafor continued.

With a profit before tax of N404 billion, UBA reported the largest profit, up 371 percent from N85.75 billion in H1 2022.

The group increased its gross earnings from N372.36 billion to N981.78 billion, a 164 percent increase.

Basic and diluted earnings per share stood at N10.95 from N1.95.

After tax, Zenith Bank's profit increased to N350.4 billion from N130 billion.

Driven by interest and non-interest income, the bank's gross earnings increased by 139% from N404.8 billion. After N3.55 per share in the comparable periods, basic and diluted earnings per share were N9.29 per share.

It went from having N972.9 billion to N2.4 trillion in cash and currency equivalents.

GTCO's pre-tax earnings increased from N103.3 billion to N327.4 billion.

From N239.29 billion, the holding company's gross earnings climbed to N672.6 billion. Basic earnings per share increased from N2.70 per share during the comparable period to N9.94 per share.

With N2.5 trillion in cash and cash equivalents, up from N1 trillion in 2022, GTCO recorded the greatest amount.

Profit before taxes for Dangote Cement was N239.86 in H1 2022 compared to N264.890 billion in H1 2022.

The income of Dangote Cement increased from N808.04 billion to N950.83 billion.

The net currency loss on foreign-denominated operations for Dangote Cement increased from N40.66 billion in H1 2022 to N113.63.

The company reported that sales volume for pan-African operations increased by 11.6 percent to 5.4Mt from 4.9Mt in H1 2022, based on its six-month unaudited results. For the half-year, 40.4 percent of group volumes are accounted for by the entire pan-African volume.

The performance of the pan-African activities can be attributed to the strong demand, especially from Ethiopia, Senegal, Zambia, and the Congo. As a result, to N336.4 billion, pan-African revenues increased by 81.8 percent.

Profit before taxes for FBN Holdings increased to N206.3 billion from N65.7 billion.

Its gross profits increased from N359.2 billion to N656.6 billion, an 82.8 percent increase. From 155 kobo, basic earnings per share were 519 kobo. Cash and cash equivalents held by FBN Holdings decreased to N1.52 trillion from N1.45 trillion.

The earnings before taxes for MTN Nigeria decreased from N331.8 billion in H1 2022 to N200.39 billion.

The telecom giant saw a 21.96 percent increase in income during the same period last year, rising from N950 billion to N1.15 trillion.

With a profit before taxes of N167.6 billion, Access Holdings posted a 71.4 percent year-over-year increase.

Customer deposits have increased by 35% year to date to N12.5 trillion.

All business segments saw development in this group, which cemented the company's position as the biggest financial institution in Nigeria in terms of total assets.

With N940.3 billion in total earnings, the group achieved strong year-over-year increase of 58.9 percent. The combination of a 51.9 percent increase in non-interest income and a 63 percent gain in interest income was what caused this significant spike in gross earnings.