Good morning, everyone. I want to kindly request our partners, Server, if they could hold a little bit at the back so that we can start our event for today.

We want to welcome you, and for our visitors, the washrooms are right outside on the left. We will also be streaming the results live, and we will just give you the cue when we go live.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We want to welcome the chairman and the group members of the board, the members of the Fourth Estate, our investors and analysts, and members of Equity Group executive management to the release of Equity Group Holdings Plc.

half year 2026 financial results. Welcome.

I want to request all of us to be upstanding for the Equity anthem, kindly. Creating equity we are, all the staff, customers, and partners.

Coming together, our purpose common, creating wealth and transforming lives. I am a member, you are a member, we are united by Equity.

Equity heart is in caring partner, transforming people's lives. I am a member, you are a member, we are united by Equity.

Equity heart is in caring partner, transforming people's lives. Serving our people with openness and joy, moving together in honesty and trust.

All dedicated to the call of duty, embracing change for prosperity. I am a member, you are a member, we are united by Equity.

Equity heart is in caring partner, transforming people's lives. I am a member, you are a member, we are united by Equity.

Equity heart is in caring partner, transforming people's lives. Reaching our people all over the world, building services to communities.

All safe and guarded, living with delight, inspiring, praising, dreams coming true. I am a member, you are a member, we are united by Equity.

Equity heart is in caring partner, transforming people's lives. I am a member, you are a member, we are united by Equity.

Equity heart is in caring partner, transforming people's lives. Endless service we offer our heart, to our Creator praises we sing.

Moving together every day we grow, our hearts so grateful for what we have. I am a member, you are a member, we are united by Equity.

Equity heart is in caring partner, transforming people's lives. I am a member, you are a member, we are united by Equity.

Equity heart is in caring partner, transforming people's lives. I kindly request us to keep standing for the opening prayers by Reverend Evans.

Let us pray. Father, our God in heaven, this morning we bow before Your holy presence, thanking You, Lord, for this day.

Thank You for enabling us to see this beautiful morning, and thank You for this meeting that we are about to have this day, even as we have our results for the half year. Our God, we thank You for the growth.

Thank You for the successes. Thank You for the misses, because You are our God.

The Bible tells us that You are the God of the mountains, and You are the God of the valleys. We want to yield our minds and our hearts to You, acknowledging, God, that the far we have come, it has taken Your mighty hand.

Therefore, Lord, we want to also agree with Your word that reminds us that, Lord, we should not say it is our strength that has given us power to generate wealth. Therefore, Lord, we submit under Your authority, asking You for guidance and presence in this meeting.

Lord, we commit all who are present here and those joining us virtually. We pray that, God Almighty, You be in our midst.

Commit our team leader before You, praying for grace and strength even as he comes to release these results. Be with us till the very end, for this our humble prayer in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We may take our seats. Thank you, Reverend Evans.

Before I invite the Group Managing Director, Dr. James Mwangi, to release the results, for those following us online, especially the investors, the analysts, and the members of the Fourth Estate, you can post your questions on the virtual platforms.

We are live on Facebook, our YouTube channel, and all our pages, and the team here led by Dr. Mwangi will respond to those questions.

It's now my honor to invite our Group Managing Director and CEO, Dr. James Mwangi, to release the half year 2026 financial results.

Dr. Mwangi.

Thank you very much, Alex. It's a privilege and real honor for me for the first time to release the results of Equity Group in the presence of the entire board of the holding company for which I release these results.

I want to acknowledge them, and maybe for the sake of the Fourth Estate and investors, maybe just ask them just to raise their hand. Those are the members of the board for the group, and we are really privileged to have you in the room.

Investors, analysts, media personalities, this year's results or release of results will be very different. For the last four, three years, we have focused on explaining the transformation of the group and what we were going through.

We wanted to carry every investor on our journey of transformation. From today going forward, we don't need to focus on that.

We believe you understand. We'll purely focus on outcomes of the transformation.

It will be purely results. If it doesn't take the usual three hours and take half an hour, understand that it's purely releasing of results.

Explanations of how those results have come about have been done for the last three, five years. It was a phase of transforming this organization, developing the organization, and now we are celebrating its performance and we can see the momentum.

Other than momentum, we'll really focus on numbers. The essence of Equity has not changed.

Equity remains convinced that it exists to cause change, to transform lives, to give people dignity, and empower them to create wealth as a means and mechanism of living. In creating and giving everybody an opportunity, we believe we are contributing significantly to a peaceful world because everybody has a stake in the world we are building.

Everybody cares about a sustainable world because it works for them. This journey and the transformation we have gone through has helped us now to move from merely financial inclusion, particularly in Kenya, to economic inclusion.

It's how we get people to play in the markets so that they can create wealth. Foundation will continue to de-risk, to empower, and to fight poverty, but the bulk of the population now can rely on the markets, and our responsibility is to enable them play well in the market.

We are a value-based organization and will continue to be founded on beliefs, which really constitute our philosophies and beliefs as an organization. Purely those values helps us to build a brand, an organization, and to have an identity of who Equity is and who members of Equity are.

Moving on to the operating environment, and today I will not talk much because we have our Chief Economist, Charles, and I will give him a chance. We are convinced that the Africans' moment of Southeast Asia or the Southeast Asia moment for Africa is here with us.

The markets that we operate in are all among the top fastest-growing economies in the world. This was the phenomenon that we had in Southeast Asia.

That is why we were transforming ourselves to be ready when the moment comes. We believe the moment has come and that will really reflect in results.

We have a conviction that this moment, like Southeast Asia or China, will be there for another 30 years. We have built an agile, resilient organization that can scale over the next 30 years.

It will be just a question of watching the results and how they evolve over the next 30 years, and you can start imagining Equity of 2063, when Kenya and Africa will be 100, and Equity will be approximately 70. A mature organization.

That is the journey we have completed, laying a foundation of a scalable organization that will be agile and resilient to be able to adapt to a quickly changing environment. All our countries of operations are making a major contribution to this wind of change that we are receiving in Eastern and Central Africa.

Whether it's DRC with its strategic minerals, whether it's Tanzania with its logistical advantage in the region, whether it's Rwanda with its unique legal environment, whether it's Kenya with its developed social institutions of education and health, advanced education and technology access, all those components, including Uganda's oil now, is what is contributing to this momentum that we are witnessing. We believe, and Charles will expound more, that the ingredients of a sustained long-term growth, a long runway, a high headroom exist for this organization.

We also look at the countries and ask ourselves, have the countries positioned themselves well? You can have the endowment of resources, but is the policy framework right?

Is the reform agenda on track? Is there momentum for these countries to transform?

When you look at rating of our countries, the entire block is all in the B class. It's all in the investment grade.

Essentially, the countries are pulling together, and we are very excited that there is no outlier. We are not anticipating any disruptions within that ecosystem or within that cluster of countries that are really leading the world in terms of growth.

The diversity between those countries, the collaboration in infrastructure development, then create a cluster of countries that really can support momentum for industrialization, momentum for transformation, and sustain it for a long time. I think the most missed aspect is the competitiveness of those nations.

It's not by default or by just luck that they're in a cluster including their rating, it's because they are competing for positioning, and that is likely to be a big driving force. Moving on to look at our positioning in that market and what we have been working on, structuring our balance sheet, positioning ourselves well as systemic bank.

If there is any bank that can unite that region, bring it together with financial rails, it's Equity, because as we can see, it's systemic in any country. It has a relevant balance sheet in each country, it has a relevant capability in each country, and can orchestrate cross-border trade and investment in the region.

The size of the group at 2.2 trillion shillings then gives it the capability to facilitate, to catalyze the economic activities. That explains why we're moving from merely financial inclusion to economic inclusion so that we allow the markets to fund this growth.

We are believers in private-sector-led development, and we are then very well positioned to finance the private sector that will develop this region. We're not just systemic, but in each market, if you look, the market share, the customer base allows us then, particularly, to catalyze cross-border trade.

If you look at the numbers, non-funded income is the fastest-growing line because it's being driven by trade finance that is emanating from the cross-border trade. Moving on, we look at the dashboard, and we see a lot of positivity, greens all over.

It's good to say, while the regional strategy worked and the last time we were here, the subsidiaries were leading with nearly 55% of our assets and profit, Kenya, the sleeping giants have woken up and pushed back. We can see it's the only subsidiary everything is green, and we can see what is happening to its returns, whether it's return on average equity, return on asset.

That trend, high double-digit numbers in every trend shows how in one snapshot how the group is performing. None of them is being left behind.

It's a very inclusive transformation. Moving on, we see two unique subsidiaries.

We have talked about Kenya, and we can see Kenya, deposits growing by 24%, we can see assets growing by 13%, and we can see even the loan book in Kenya growing at 8%. That's what we are saying, Kenya has bounced back.

The numbers in terms of outcome we are seeing is fundamental, and it's built on a restructured balance sheet, and Kenya most likely will hold that momentum. We can see now the race between Kenya and DRC.

In terms of deposits, Kenya is at 900 billion, and DRC is at 700 billion shillings, that is. It's the growth of deposits.

DRC is growing at 46%, Kenya at 24%. Mathematicians can tell us when the two are likely to pulling it out who is the leader of the group in terms of value creation.

If you look at loans again, DRC at 30%, Kenya at 8%, asset growth, 45% and Kenya at 13%. Our prediction is that the two of them will fight it out on 2028, and all of us needs to be referees to determine or to announce.

I'm excited to see the two of them sitting together and laughing, and I hope they will still laugh in 2028 when it figures out. It's really at the revenue level that you then see that it's not going to be easy.

Kenya growing at 23%, and DRC growing at 30%, suggesting Kenya has chosen efficiency path. It may choose not to fight the balance sheet war.

I hope it is not surrendering, but it will say it's a question of outcome. What is the essence of business?

Profit before tax, 48% and 35%. Again, because of efficiencies, the differences are not big.

Then when you look at profit after tax, Kenya, 32%, and DRC, 30%. It's not easily predictable because of the paths.

If DRC, and I hope it will choose that path, that it's growth and efficiency, then it will be an interesting battle between the giants. I think that's what management will try to encourage DRC.

For the investors, as we see, the very rapid growth in DRC has not fully transformed into efficient operations, and so return on equity, Kenya at 35% and DRC at 22%, return on asset, Kenya at 4.8% and DRC at 3.2%. That is where management role is.

How do we make DRC a replica of Kenya? That is then where investors should focus on, and that is what the management focus will be all about.

This again affirms that Equity Group is no longer a national bank or financial group. It's a regional Pan-African organization, well-diversified group.

Moving on, we see the balance sheet growing year on year 20% and quarter on quarter at 9%, suggesting the momentum is increasing. If year on year is 20% and quarter on quarter is at 9%, the momentum is significantly increasing.

We see it's the liability-led organization or balance sheet, 19% year on year, 11% quarter on quarter. Again, and we see a very stable loan-to-deposit ratio at 62%, again suggesting that the intermediation machinery and engine is very, very efficient.

Whatever deposits, that very rapid growth in deposits is quickly translating into a loan book. That efficiency is what can generate enormous value because of deployment within.

Moving on, we see that the quality of the asset of the group is continuously improving. We see from half year 2025, we have moved from 13.7% to 9.5%.

We're really glad that we are back to single digit, and we expect that that trend will continue. That trend of improvement is continuing without compromising coverage.

The risk of the present is not being carried into the future. We see significant that the value being created is value that transform into shareholder returns because coverage is right, NPLs are improving.

We are now at single digit, and we expect to be able to move that to mid single digit numbers. The numbers are there.

Moving on from loans and asset, we look at market positioning for diversification on product offering. We see insurance have become very strong.

Four years down the road from our startup journey, we are number one in terms of return on assets and number five in terms of insurance services results, and fifth most profitable insurance within the market. We are very happy with what has happened insurance, but the momentum of growth is like that of the banking group.

Gross written premium growing at 24%, total income growing at 43%, and profit growing at 34%, suggesting that it's a value-creative growth. That's what investors will be looking at.

Assets growing at 27%. It's just a question of time before we become a market leader.

I'm glad that we have Angela with us, and so could be able to explain all this. Combining these talents then can explain the marketplace, what is happening in the marketplace to sustain this momentum, and Brent would look at it from a strategic perspective, delivery of strategy and how long that can be sustained.

We see the insurance group beating the banking group in terms of return on equity and return on asset, suggesting that this is a self-funding business now. Investors need not to continue to worry about funding growth.

The growth is self-funding, and it's just a question of time before they start paying off to the investors. Moving on from insurance and looking at technology, this kind of growth cannot be sustained by brick and mortar.

We have segued very well, and we are very excited that 89.7% of all our customers are now on digital channels. We have become really an online business.

It's a digital bank. We have compressed distance and time.

You can do banking whatever time, wherever you are. The most important thing that speaks on the stability and availability of our IT capability, the greatest journey we have made in our transformation is creating scalable, agile technology stack and platform.

I want to, in a very special way, recognize the chair of technology board committee, Dr. Evans, for helping us over the last five years to build this huge capability.

This is what would enable the growth of Equity. DRC and Kenya will have no excuse from enablement as they compete for market share.

Insurance will have no excuse on enablement as it competes to grow its business because we have scalable capability. While it is 89.7% digital transactions, the transactions outside the banking premises is 98.3%.

Only 1.7% of our transactions happen within our premises. That is why I said it's an online business using third-party infrastructure where the customer is not using their device.

That is what we said, it's not just IT capability, but it's capability that has enabled customers to transition to digital because of reliability, dependability, availability of the system, and ease of use of system. Staying with the technology group, we see the choice that has been given to the customers on how to digitize themselves.

You can see a myriad of self-service channels: from online internet banking, from mobile POSs, from mobile channels of Equitel, SDK, USSD. The customer is spoiled of choice.

Essentially, the next battle is to make social media channels transaction channels so that we make it even more convenient for our customers. We have seen the customer has spoken.

If you look at our fixed-cost channels, ATMs are down 28% and branches are down 1%, and the growth is entirely on the other side in terms of digital channels. The customer have moved on, and we're very lucky that we didn't miss the movement of the customer, that we Equity walked the journey.

That understanding of the customer is what has created Equity being market-led. It's rare to see an environment like that that you're able to predict with precision the trends in the market and the customers' decision.

That explains the double-digit growth in deposits because we have delivered unparalleled convenience to the customers, and that is why we would continue to grow. We have done it very well with channels.

The next battle is on the products, and we are really investing heavily on the product house, and we have asked the technology group to really focus on that. What are the relevant products to allow economic inclusion?

What are the relevant products? What is the need of the customer?

We should never be product-supply-driven, but it will be product-demand-driven so that we continue to connect with the customer, to walk with the customer together. Moving on from technology to look at diversification, we see a positive trend where, despite the banking group growing significantly, double-digit, high double-digit numbers, 30%, 40%, whether it's customer deposits, whether it's loans, whether it's assets, the non-banking group, while at startup status, led by insurance, technology, investment bank, they're pushing, and they're very efficient.

They have chosen the efficient path, but it's because from the start, they have leveraged on technology. Those are the most technology-driven digital businesses.

If you look at the return on assets for the insurance group at 4.6%, it's above the banking group. Return on equity at 37%.

It's the technology group, as we can see, return of equity over 128%, return on asset of 33%, investment bank, 21%, 14%, bancassurance, 36%, 14%. That is, they may be small, but very, very competitive in return on equity and return on asset, and that is what matters to an investor.

The question is, how do we scale while remaining that efficient and generating that level of extraordinary returns? It's not just the regional diversification that has worked, the business diversification, the product offering diversification.

This is what fortifies this group. This is what makes this group a very unique portfolio of assets.

When you buy Equity, you don't buy one. You buy banking, you buy insurance, you buy investment bank, you buy technology.

It's a very diversified portfolio. When investors really look at that, you don't need to go and take four, five stocks.

You can take one stock that has all in them, and all of them at very, very high return. Moving on from diversification and looking at really why we exist and looking at our focus on sustainability, our social investment program, our impact investment program continues to be significant.

As you can see, our biggest focus is on scholarships. Scholarship and health, if you look at health and scholarships, that is 50% of our program.

It's the commitment of Equity to change lives, to transform lives, to empower people, to improve the productivity of people, and to bring a more equitable society. That 50% of our investment go in that.

All the others, whether it's leadership development, enterprise development, food and agriculture, and energy, that is economic inclusion. That is now moving people to be self-reliant.

That is really helping people to live their dignity and grow their wealth. That engine really make a huge contribution in de-risking and capacitating people forward.

Environment remains always important. Leadership investment, slide back, Alex, focusing on leadership development.

I'm really glad that so far, we've been able to get 60,000 of our Wings to Fly scholars through high school. We now have 33,000 of our scholars in universities.

We have 1,200 in international universities. This seed that we are planting is what would do what Equity is going through: transformation of our society.

The scale of this program, as we can see, the monetary cost is very significant. If we can move on to the next slide, we're talking of $800 million of funds being applied.

It's the scale of this program that causes the transformational impact. We are celebrating our youngest program, the health pillar, 5.3 million patient visits.

Earlier on, we were talking of we would diversify not only to make health high-quality, accessible, and affordable, but we have now said, can we make medicine equally accessible, affordable? Our pilot of Equity Afia pharmacy is on.

As you walk out of the building on ground floor of Britam Towers, you see our nearest Equity Afia pharmacy, so that truly it's about getting investment in people. Equity is a people-centered brand.

It's all about people. It's really not a slogan, but it's what we live.

We live our philosophies and our beliefs. Moving on and looking at one project, this of leadership development.

As we said, we have 246 scholars out, and as we can see, those 246 scholars are at the Ivy League schools. You can see Harvard, 52, Princeton, 36, Yale, 33, UPenn, 41.

These are the leaders we expect to come back and transform the way our doctors, scholars have transformed health. Now our pharmacists are transforming the pharmacy landscape in the country.

We are very optimistic. The only thing to point out is the gender consideration.

Of all our global scholars, they are almost 50-50: 55-45 in favor of men. That focus on leadership development, and this leadership development is global exposure, it's global networks, it's global experience.

These are part of the 33,000 scholars. It's that infusion of experience then help us to be able to do.

It's the acceptance of the program across the world: Europe, 107, and now Europe has given us scholarship, 100 scholarships every year for the master's program for these scholars. We'll see greater and greater impact from the investment that Equity Group is making.

Moving on, the partner card continues to grow. We're not doing this alone.

We are a trusted partner. Our core values have created reliable, dependable global partner.

Companies coming to Africa and seeking partnership, we have become a partner of choice. That's why the programs have been scaled.

Our commitment to values, our commitment to governance has paid very big in who have chosen to walk with us. That is why we can say we can walk very far.

We can say 30 years down the road, the scale will be because we are not working alone. We are walking with others who are like-minded.

Now getting to the numbers, because I know people are seen. We see a balance sheet that has expanded by 20%.

20%, high double-digit number is big. It is very big if you are talking of a 2.2 trillion balance sheet.

If you look at the expansion, it is from last year is from 1.8 trillion to two almost .2 trillion. It's nearly 400 billion being built in one year.

That is a Tier 1 bank being built in that momentum. Sustaining this momentum then gives you a view of what Equity is going to become.

It tells you what the engineering work of transforming Equity meant. These are the rewards, and that's why I said I no longer need to talk about the transformation journey.

We need to see, what did it results to? The question we should be asking, how long could this sustain?

My prediction is 30 years to come, Equity will still be growing at this phenomenon double-digit growth rate at balance sheet level. That balance sheet growth, the best thing out of it is that it's customer-led.

It's the customers who are making choice that Equity Bank, Equity Group is a safe, secure place for my money. When the customer loves you and chooses you, nobody can hate you.

Because we are all fighting for the customer. You can only watch.

That is where the power of brand, the power of keeping promise, the power of particularly service experience. I'm really grateful to our technology team because they have kept the promise: availability, accessibility, convenience.

I hope commercial team led by Terence will then say, the right product. If the right products are offered, then we can grow 50% sustained for 30 years because we'll be fulfilling the needs.

It's not us making the decision how fast to grow, it's the market making that decision. It's because you are relevant to the market.

We're very excited that we are market-driven, we are market-led, and it's the customer who is breathing life into the organization. All that we need to do is to continue to fulfill the customer, to satisfy the customers.

I want to at this juncture also to really thank our shareholders. Because as you can see, as the customers put 21% growth rate, shareholders are putting 27% growth rate.

They know ultimately a liability-based growth must be underpinned by shareholders' funds. It's leveraging.

That ability, we can keep on taking as much deposits and it can be unstoppable growth because the shareholder understand. Because the model, the restructuring led to a very efficient bank, we don't need to go back to the shareholder and say fund us.

It's a self-funded growth, internally generated funds. It's a very efficient model, almost giving assurance to the shareholders that what they beautifully built, they're not going to be diluted.

They can fund it themselves. It's a very unique model of transformation, a unique transformation that have led to a very unique value proposition for the shareholder or for the investor, for that matter, that their patience has been paid fairly comfortable.

Again, turning to the management to thank you most sincerely because as deposits grow by 21%, loans grow by 19%. That's why we're saying a very efficient intermediation.

As deposit goes, they are quickly transmitted into loans. Why?

Because we want to empower people to generate wealth. Every dream is being funded.

Resources are being made available to make every dream. I want to look at our customers and the general public that we exist to empower those dreams.

No dream should go unrealized because Equity want to start with the dreamers and make those dreams come true. I want to draw people's attention to year-on-year growth.

As you can see, every asset that matters is growing at two upper two-digit number, above 20%. Of course, you don't need other liabilities to grow.

Don't worry about the five. You want certain that growth, balanced growth both on the asset side and the liability reflects a matching of tenure, a matching of portfolios, and I would call it an equilibrium point from a financial point perspective.

Moving on, let's see the P&L. I think this is broadly where truly transformation has contributed.

I haven't stood before investors to show top line that is not just growing on two-digit numbers, but very high digital two-digit numbers. Look at non-funded income at 36% growth.

The diversification that we have talked about had significant growth. When you buy Equity stock, you don't have the risk of cyclic performance of balance sheet because the income is non-funded income, is not balance sheet driven.

The quality of streams of income that we have been able to generate is incredible, and we're really excited about the huge transformation. One may be worried about staff cost at 35%.

I want to say that is not a cost, it's an investment. It's having the right people in the organization.

We are front-loading staff capability. The skills we are building will be able to sustain this organization for the next 20 years.

We have seen transitions. We had to transition to the team that can take us up to 2060.

Initially, it may look expensive, but as the balance sheet grows, the unit cost of human capital will become almost negligible. It is upfront investment, have the right skill.

Look at the people on the bench and the experience they bring, the capability they hold, the value they will help us to unlock, their ability to develop the products that the customer require. Essentially, I want to allay any concerns, and it's simply because this is the first year coming from a low base.

We see growth in income at 25% against a cost of 14%. That is what efficiency is, if you wanted to use a different name.

One is the opening jaws, where income is going two times faster than expense. That explains we'll see cost-income ratio coming down, we'll see yields moving up, and as a result, our profit grows.

If you look at that column of growth, the highest growing number is profit before tax at 39%. I'm really glad to see the bank grow from 41 billion to 58 billion shillings within half a year, and that should give you a prediction of how Equity will look at Kenya at 100, 2063.

Let's just start imagining as an investor and see what you will be bequeathing your children or your grandchildren. When you invest in Equity, you don't invest for yourself.

This is a high-growth stock, a high-return stock. This is not for selling in the market, it's not for trading.

It's for holding. The cash generated is enough to maintain your lifestyle, and you leave the stock for your children.

That's the story I'm really seeing from these numbers. If we were to tell the stories the numbers are telling, that what the story.

Profit after tax at 32%. 32% might sound it's two-digit.

It only makes sense when you look at it's moving from 34 billion shillings to 45 billion shillings. It's the number.

It's okay for a rabbit to grow by 50%. It will be still smaller than a dik-dik.

When an elephant grows at 35%, that's when you understand what these numbers are saying. It's a market leader.

If I were you, I would be asking, what is happening to the market share? What is happening to the market share?

What is going to happen to the efficiency of this organization? How does it position me in terms of return on my investment?

That's the conversation, and I guess that's the conversation we will continue to have for the next 35 years. Earnings per asset, as we can see, growing again by 32%.

Everything is 32%. I was in a very special way to recognize our finance team, our tax team because of this efficiencies.

The transmission of efficiencies, nowhere is value being wasted. Value is being created at the front office, the commercial, and it's passing through all the way to the shareholders because of very efficient operations.

How well are we positioned to grow for the future? Then you look at the ratios.

I don't think I've ever presented a better slide than this, where everything is green. James, press the pedal.

The story we'll be talking about is all about growth, nothing else. Because the transformation is complete at the equilibrium point.

It's scale, scale, scale. That's the language you'll be hearing.

NIMs, you can ignore the red. What is 0.02?

We talk about two-digit numbers in Equity, not zero. Zero rounded becomes zero.

It's also green. Let's assume it's also green.

Essentially, that is what the dashboard suggest. It's the numbers.

What are the numbers saying? That we are at 1.6 trillion in terms of customer deposits, a trillion in terms of customer loans, and 2.2 trillion in terms of size of balance sheet.

That is the size Equity is. When it grows at 40%, then you can project when it will be a 5 trillion balance sheet.

It will be before 2030, with certainty. That's really what these numbers are speaking.

When you look at income, 125 billion half year. You're talking of 250 billion by the end of the year.

Profit, 60 billion. Undoubtedly, you're talking of 120 billion shillings by the end of the year.

The profit of 45 billion, you're talking of a profit after tax of 100 billion by the end of the year. Really, we can be allowed.

Why am I saying this, is because we had given you a simulation of how numbers it is. These numbers are precisely on where we had projected them to be in our guidance.

This is guidance. We expect if we have met the guidance half year, we shall meet the guidance by the end of the year.

It's the efficient ratios that I'm very excited about. All of them moving in the right direction, and we are optimistic.

As you can see, even budgets, shareholders' funds almost spot-on budget, return on equity spot-on on budget, coverage spot-on budget, NPLs almost spot-on budget, suggesting that the predictive model that we build something we understand. You can build something and you don't know, do you understand it?

Can you drive it? What we have built over five years, the transformation is now something we know we can drive because we can say, at this time, this is where we shall be, and that is where we shall be.

Don't underestimate that capability now management has given itself. I want to look at my management with a lot of pride.

You can build something and fail to get what you wanted. They got what they wanted, and that is why we're saying it's equilibrium position.

Moving on, Alex. This must be the most memorable slide.

It took Kenya 16 years to reach returns of above 4%. We see Tanzania has done that in 14 years.

We have seen Rwanda has done that in 12 years. The period to high return of 4% for the startup is shortening and shortening and shortening.

We are really mastering. As we go to be in the 15 countries, hopefully, we shall now be reaching 4% in 10 years.

The investment horizon to optimize and reach high return is becoming shorter and shorter and shorter. To a great extent, systems are working there, business model is working there, enterprise construct is working there, human capital is working there, availability of capital is at play.

That is what equilibrium is all about. We can be trusted that now we can expand on the African continent because we have demonstrated how we shall do it.

We'll do it by creating value, higher value at a shorter period. If you look, we are excited.

If you look at Uganda, it's like Uganda is saying it may also do it this year. DRC, as you can see, it's also saying this year it might also do it.

If we get all our subsidiaries at 4%, what it means is all subsidiaries will start paying dividend. The sacrifice that shareholders made during the transformation period of only taking 30% and retaining 70 has paid and will pay perpetually because the subsidiaries they funded are now joining Kenya in paying dividend by next year.

That is then when the story of Equity and the story of transformation will really be understood because it will be cash in the pocket for the investors. It is not about story of growth.

It will be growth of dividends every year. That's really what we are hoping it to be.

Turning to ratios. They have stayed too long to come.

If we look at cost-income ratio, we see what is happening. We have given you comparisons of Kenya and DRC because that is where we should put our eyes on as we look forward to blow the whistle 2028.

We can see if we taking yields, 9% last year, 12.3%, see what has happened at the group level on yields on loans, yields on government securities. It's not the year number that is really interesting.

It's really the half-year number for 2025. Look at stability there, look at efficiency, and the most exciting number for me is capital.

17.3% for risk-weighted to core capital, and total capital to risk-weighted, both of them roughly at 17.5%. The headroom for us to fund growth is very huge.

The runway of capital release to fund growth is very strong. They always say, cash is king.

61% of 2.2 trillion balance sheet is in cash, is in liquid assets. That shows then how well positioned this group is, how agile and flexible this group is.

Again, these ratios show. For analysts, the issue of return, 26.5%, half-time, of return on equity, and 4.5% return on asset.

I will be surprised if you could get any stock in the African continent with that kind of return and with a promise that cost-income ratio has moved from 51.7% to 48.6%. That's again shows you the trend.

Let me close with really converting this to balance sheet and P&L in terms of dollars. As we said, we are very, very excited that we are now a $17 billion balance sheet.

That now makes us really a towering organization in Sub-Saharan Africa, and our comparatives are now more in South Africa, and that's really what we should want to be compared with. Nearly $3 billion of shareholders' funds, that gives the shareholders a feel of what revenue, almost a billion dollars, and a profit of nearly half year, a profit of nearly half a billion dollars.

It's broadly the balance sheet, the operations of Equity has really grown, and they are very significant, irrespective of the currency you choose to use. The last slide is the market is speaking well about us.

If you look at what we had guided, we are straight on point, and that's what we said. The organization is able to predict, and whatever it promises, it delivers.

That is what integrity is. You do what you say you do.

The build-up is not we didn't only build, we understood, and we can predict where the organization will be at any point in time. This is predictability that shareholders look for.

The market has responded well, but we feel an organization growing 40% in profit, single-digit NPLs, should not be trading at book value. We are grateful that relative to the rest of listed companies, we are performing very, very well.

We are started seeing that it's not just the balance sheet that is being measured, it's the outcome from those balance sheet that is being measured, and enjoying that leverage of the market. That premium we appreciate, but we hope in the fullness of time that the pricing will reflect the performance of the organization.

That brings us to the end. As I said, just one hour of presentation as opposed to three hours because there was no engineering presentation.

Engineering presentation was on transformation. Transformation is over.

It's now what are the dashboard saying? That's purely results.

I'm really grateful to have had this opportunity this morning. I've told you what I wanted to tell you.

I don't know whether that's what you wanted to hear. Now you have an opportunity for me to tell you what you want to hear through a question-and-answer interaction.

I've come with the team, the team that is driving creation of value, the commercial team, and then where value is being captured, the businesses. A specialist, my Chief Economic Advisor, Charlie, one of the most distinguished market economists in the world is with us.

Before you ask, let me assume you should know what the markets in East Africa are saying from him because what we Equity do is understand markets. Charlie, I will give you five minutes to talk about East African market.

If you need 15 minutes, we can negotiate it then.

Thank you very much. I think I have a couple of job titles really, and one of them is Chief Anxiety Officer.

I have to worry about oil price volatility and US 30-year bond yields and El Niño, all of these things. It's also Chief Opportunity Advisor, I hope.

The opportunity in East Africa is really very clear. We've never had as many people as well-educated in East Africa as we do today.

This better-educated population is going to be transformational. We've seen it around the world.

We saw it happen in Mauritius in the 1980s. We've seen it happen in Morocco starting around 1999, 2000.

In the 2030s, it's going to be Kenya leading an industrialization wave, followed by others in East Africa as well. The opportunity is super clear.

When we think about today, when people talk about Africa, they often focus on Nigeria, South Africa, or Egypt. Every single one of our countries, Equity Group holding countries, is growing faster than Nigeria and Egypt and South Africa, every single one.

Minimum growth is 5%. We've been remarkably resilient this year despite the oil price volatility.

That's for a host of different reasons. In Congo, we have the benefit of copper prices hitting $14,000.

This is an amazing number, and what it's doing is bringing in export dollar revenues to the Congolese economy, and that's keeping the currency stable, and it's allowed the central bank to halve interest rates over the last 12 months, from 25% to 12.5%. Very helpful.

In Kenya, we had negative bank lending growth at the beginning of 2025, and today's double digit, helped by the central bank that was able to cut rates until February this year. In Uganda, we've got this oil production story coming within a few months.

Uganda's going to be exporting as much oil per person as Nigeria. Not as much in volume terms.

It's not going to be 1.5 million barrels a day, that would be amazing. Per capita, it's going to be the same number.

This is really helpful. We're going to see 10% calendar year growth probably in Uganda next year.

We've already got Rwanda booming from construction in real estate, the new airport. Growth there was hitting nearly 12% in the third quarter of last year, still running at 10% in the first quarter of this year.

It's quite an extraordinary story. Tanzania is reforming.

They're talking about opening up the local debt market to foreign investors. There's talk of a potential Eurobond, opening up the electricity transmission market to competition.

This is quite an exciting reform story coming out of Tanzania right now. Overall, we've got good growth, better growth than you get in the big names, the more famous big names of South Africa, Nigeria, or Egypt.

We've also got better inflation than most of them. We've got single-digit inflation in most of our EGH countries.

We've got currency stability in most of our EGH countries. The combination right now is working surprisingly well.

I sit there with all my grey hairs, having worried about the oil price volatility this year, having worried about so many things. I'm going to be tactful here.

Anyway, worrying so many things, but actually, we're proving very resilient indeed. Then, I'm talking in Kenya, I can't help but mention the currency and reserves.

There's still questions about the currency stability we see, but FX reserves have doubled over the last two years. We're at $15 billion of FX reserves.

The currency should have been stronger than it is today, and that currency stability, I think, has been the right policy choice, and it does encourage the pickup in bank lending and the pickup or the reliable growth that we're getting out of Kenya of at least 5%. What of my notes have I missed?

Bank lending, copper, oil, Tanzania's reforms, Rwanda, even South Sudan. This is a tough country to try and analyze.

There's not an awful lot of data right now. What we do know is that oil exports last month were at 187,000 187,000 barrels a day.

Oil exports have doubled out of South Sudan. Even South Sudan's getting a big benefit at the moment over the last 12 months.

Good growth, single-digit inflation in most of our countries, currency stability, interest rates halving in Congo, and in Kenya and Uganda, if you go back three or four, five months ago, as the oil shock first hits from Hormuz, global investors are looking around the world and saying, which countries should be suffering? Oil-importing countries should be suffering.

Pakistan had to hike rates. Kenya didn't have to hike rates.

Uganda didn't have to hike rates. We've managed to maintain good single-digit inflation in both countries and currency stability.

Global investors are still coming. DRC was able to issue a debut Eurobond for those few days when there was no fighting in Hormuz.

I think there was two days in April there was no conflict, and Congo comes and issues a Eurobond. There was debate about what rate that country could borrow in the sovereign markets.

Many people thought it should be double digit. Today, the yield on their bonds is running at about 8.4% in dollars.

That's pretty remarkable for a country that's never issued before. Kenya's also similar yields, 8 8.5% on average.

Markets, I think, have been quite benign towards East Africa, and that's because the economic performance has been good, and I think impressively good, given the challenges that the region has been having to confront. I'm pretty confident that come the 2030s, it's going to get an awful lot better.

This is going to be an Asian-style development story, and it's going to start here. We've got lots more years to get to before we finish there.

I'll stop there, Dr. Mwangi.

Thank you very much. How would you compare the Southeast Asia over the last 30 years with what we are seeing the beginning of our movement in Eastern and Central Africa?

I put together three theories in the 2010s after covering emerging and frontier markets for, well, as of now, about 30 years. What I think makes the difference is a combination of three things.

You've got to have education. You've got to have adult literacy of 70% to 80%.

That adult literacy to get people out of subsistence farming into textiles, we don't all have to have degrees to do that, but we do need to be able to read and write four words. Farming is hard work, and it is hard work, and I'm not saying textile work is much easier, but it's better paid.

It's better paid on average. I spoke to a guy who used to run textile mills in Sri Lanka and the Philippines in Southeast Asia in the 1980s, and I said, why do you need this adult literacy?

Why do you need to be able to read and write to work in a textile mill? He ran the Levi's factories in the Philippines and the Levi's factories in Sri Lanka, and he said, when the Levi jeans are rolling down the production line, do you put those jeans into the box for Europe or for America?

Which one? You've got to be able to read and write.

You've got to be able to read those words, and it makes the difference. Sri Lanka, were it not for its conflict, would be an even more successful story than it has been.

Philippines now has been booming at 5% or 6% a year for the last 20 years. You get education right, the take-off comes.

It's not just education, you also need power. Power is the second metric.

You've need cheap, reliable, plentiful power. That comes and has come in Southeast Asia.

It came in Asia in the 1980s and the 1990s, and this is why Asia's been doing so well. We don't have it across many of our countries.

That's still an issue. Our power can be expensive.

Why is power expensive? Because power, the price of power is driven by interest rates.

Getting interest rates down is a function of demographics. When you've got the right demographics, you get the low interest rates, you get the cheap power, and then with the educated population, you see industrialization and take-off.

Where we are today in, say, Kenya, is like Philippines was probably in the 1990s, 1980s, 1990s. We're nearly there.

We're going to be followed very, very soon after by Rwanda, Uganda. Countries are all going to have these three metrics: demographic structure, education, power.

It's all coming over the next 10 to 15 years. We're not quite there yet.

We haven't got everything. We haven't got all cylinders firing, but Kenya's going to be leading the pack, and the rest of our region is following.

A just-in-time transformation. Just as the movement arrives, Brent, you have a very deep knowledge of Southeast Asia and particularly Philippines.

I've heard it mentioned a couple of times here. Are you seeing the requisite ingredients that transformed Southeast Asia in our markets of operation?

Let me contrast it to the journey Kenya has been going through over the last 18 to 25 years. You'll appreciate, for the 20 years up to 2018, the country or the levers of growth have been driven by infrastructure spend, public sector funding.

It has resulted in the debt levels that we currently see. Importantly, and similar to what happened in the Philippines, we're transitioning towards more consumption-led growth rather than infrastructure-led growth.

Essentially, though, the beneficiaries of the infrastructure will be those that will be driving growth. With this, there are reforms that are required so that private enterprise can leverage off this infrastructure of road, power generation, etc.

This is a region that is increasingly integrated as well. In the Philippines, this is an island country.

Where we are in East Africa, and Kenya competing with Tanzania as the gateway to an increasingly integrated region, you have a demographic that will drive consumption and utilization of this infrastructure. You will see retail opportunities.

If I bring it to the context of our business, mass market becomes a big opportunity for business like ours. As you would have seen in our targets, we are looking to target 65% of our business to be micro, small, medium-sized enterprises.

That reflects this consumption, this demographic opportunity that we are seeing. Maybe just to bring it closer to the results that we've produced, the results we've reported is a reflection of diversification translating into growth and, importantly, converting into returns.

James mentioned that the contribution of the business outside of Kenya, from a profit perspective, is now 49%, from a balance sheet perspective, it's 53%. When you look at our business, it's not a Kenya business anymore, it's a regional business.

Even from a product perspective, outside of the geographic diversification, in terms of product perspective, as we look to broaden our reach of this consumer, micro, small, medium-sized opportunity, our non-funded income contributes 45% of our revenue streams. As James mentioned, these revenue streams do not require as much capital.

They are more annuity in nature and, therefore, quite defensive through the cycle. Also, increasingly, not a big contributor at the moment, but the non-bank subsidiaries contributing 4%, and that will continue to increase as the insurance growth outpaces the banking group, just because of penetration and the base effect, and as we gain momentum on the technology front.

Diversification is a function of geography, product, and our expansion outside of the banking business. This diversification, and we've received lots of questions in the past of allocation of resources and capital into new geographies, this diversification has resulted in growth, and there's some questions online around the sustainability of this earnings growth that we've reported of 32%.

You can see the growth in our bank earnings growing 30% versus our non-bank earnings growing 53%. You can see the allocation of capital to new verticals is growth-accretive to the group.

Growth is also being seen in terms of growth in Kenya versus outside of Kenya. Kenya growing 32%, as James mentioned.

The Kenya business, led by Moses, has turned around and is starting to report growth, with top line growing, importantly, and the balance sheet starting to grow. One key item I'd want to point out is that quarter-on-quarter growth in Kenya grew for the first time double digits at 11%.

Last time it reported double-digit quarter-on-quarter growth was back in 2021. That reflects not only has the business turned around, but it's growing.

Also, as part of the diversification I mentioned, the non-interest income did grow 17% versus the non-interest revenue, which grew 36%. Really, again, diversification across different line items, across different geographies.

Then more importantly for investors, growth is translating into returns. As James pointed out in that slide, reflecting the shorter period we are taking to generate high returns, it shows you that we have a business model that can be replicated and there is a learning organization that we have put in place.

Let me just color out some of the returns. Kenya operations generating 35% ROEs, and you contrast that to operations outside of Kenya generating 23%.

Then if you look at the banking group generating 28% ROEs, and you contrast that to the non-bank subsidiaries generating 52%. Not only has the decisioning of management of the last three to five years during this transformative period translated into growth, but importantly, it's converting into returns.

Yes, we have a dividend payout of 30% to 50%. We currently at the lower end, but as the subsidiaries, both bank, non-bank, start to expand their returns, you will see naturally the dividends expand as well.

Maybe one point I'd want to highlight is the latent value clearly seen on the balance sheet. There's questions around whether the margins will expand, whether the earnings momentum that you've seen in the half year is sustainable.

We have a loan-to-asset ratio of 45%. James mentioned that a lot of our balance sheet is sitting in liquid assets.

The loan growth is starting to pick up. We're growing 19% year on year as a group.

As we look to transition the balance sheet mix to increase the lending versus the liquid assets, you will see this supporting the margins. Therefore, and there was a question online, in spite of interest rates coming down having an impact on our asset yields, particularly on the loan book, our ability to divert or reinvest the liquid assets into higher-yielding loan book, particularly as we move more into the SME environment.

Charlie mentioned that the environment has remained resilient. We've seen some green shoots in terms of the macros across the region.

There is risk appetite to start growing these higher-yielding assets in the loan book, and also within the loan book towards the micro, small, medium-sized enterprises. Those are maybe some of the key points, and that helps maybe answer some of the questions that we had online regarding the sustainability of earnings, around the margins, around the contribution of subsidiaries.

We did have one question around the ROEs and what would be the biggest constraint. For us, it's not so much what is constraining the ROE expansion.

We are more focused also on the quality of those ROEs in which they expand, and that speaks again to what we're doing on the non-funded income side, but also the operational leverage we are seeing in the business, with the cost-to-income coming down. As we digitize, as we put in place more technology into the business, you'll see a lot more operational leverage, i.e., revenue growing much faster than costs, because of the digital nature of how we generate our revenue streams.

Let me stop there, James.

Thank you very much, Brent. Therence, value is created in the marketplace.

Will Eastern and Central Africa create the same value that we saw created in Southeast Asia that transformed an entire region? If so, where will value be most created?

Thanks, Dr. James.

We spent a lot of time over the past six months to deliberately and intentionally shift our focus to execution, execution, execution. Dr.

James spoke about setting the transformation journey over the past three to five years. That stage has been set, we have moved into an execution mode.

That's why you see the numbers speaks for themselves. The value that we will continue in a sustainable manner to create over the next quarters, next years into the future is based on the following: is that what we have done deliberately over the past six months, and more so over the past six months, is to reorganize ourselves as a business.

One thing that we focused particularly was on collaboration amongst ourselves. How do we collaborate together?

How do we knock our heads together? How do we discuss constructively the type of value that we want to create for our customers, our clients?

We look at our different segments. We look at our CIB segments and we did a deep dive analysis around how do we deliver services, how do we deliver solutions, how do we deliver value to our clients.

We look at our core of our business, our SME business, our retail business, but more importantly, we also look at the interlinkages, because we want to get it right, the ecosystem financing. How does value translate from CIB, from our anchors, into the retail, into the person on the street?

We continuous to constructively discuss those different scenarios that we create ourselves, and for now it seems that it has worked very well based on the results that we have seen. We are very confident going into the future we will sustain those constructive discussions because those are the discussions that our clients are asking us to deliver to them.

We have spent also, in addition to that, we have spent time traveling to go and see our clients in their offices, sit with them to understand what did they require from us. We listened to them.

We discussed together, we came up with solutions together because we wanted to walk the journey with our clients so that we deliver the right-line solutions, so that we become the bank of choice for our clients.

Which sectors are you seeing most, and which are likely to contribute most?

We seeing a lot of opportunities in the SME sector, a lot of opportunities in agricultural. Myself and Brent, we work very closely to unearth and monetize those opportunities.

Manufacturing is a key driver of economies across our regions, a lot of opportunities that we see there as well. Of course, the one that it's very critical is international trade.

We have just hosted a very successful French-Africa summit. We've got a lot of missions across our footprint.

We see a lot of opportunities how we partner with our clients to bring the world to Africa, but more importantly, also to take Africa to the world. The international trade, global trade is a significant revenue driver for the bank.

All of those sectors will then propel us to boost and be behind the momentum of growth that the GCEO spoke about. Those are the sectors that we will continue to invest in.

Very good. I talked about watching the two subsidiaries, DRC and Kenya, and a shareholder, Stephen Irungu Kimani, asks, "The two subsidiaries, which do you expect to be the biggest contributor to incremental group earnings over the next three years?"

The two subsidiaries are here. I don't want to speak on their behalf.

Why do you think it will be Kenya, and Willy, why do you think it will be DRC by 2028? Kenya first.

Let me go first, James, because I want to keep Willy waiting for much longer time. Thanks for that, Stephen, for that question.

I think first is to reiterate a point James made around how Kenya has rebuilt itself. There are three key ingredients that has gotten us to the fantastic results that we are reflecting today.

One is our deliberate move to start being as close to the customer as possible, understanding what the customer needs, and how do we get to serve them much more effectively. The second one was around discipline, and we've taken that journey in terms of limiting number of gaps where we had leakages, efficiencies, and driving cost structure efficiencies as well.

The third one then is around ensuring that we have the right people. We've built a base.

With that base, then it's for us then to take full advantage of what the macro position gives us as a country. If you look at the projections Charlie did mention, Kenya is projected to grow between 4.5% and 5%.

It's not only that, but also knowing the prime position that Kenya occupies in this region as a gateway to the entire market. How we are going to take full advantage of that is important for us as a country, but more importantly, as Equity Bank Kenya.

We are also sitting on a gold mine in terms of just the youthful population. The median age for Kenya is 20 years.

That then gives us a good position. These people are coming to the earning age.

We'll be able to take full advantage of that and capitalize in there. As Kenya, we've been the testing ground for a number of significant group initiatives around creating the ecosystems.

You did hear Brent and Therence talk about this, but we are bringing them to life in Kenya and being able to demonstrate to our client that we're actually able to create value. If you see what we've done with the tea ecosystem that sits in Kenya, we are looking to do the same for leather this year, and as well as other areas.

This will be able to transform the value that we directly take to clients, and that is immediate value to us. Those are values that you create for posterity.

They are not things you create for here and now. They live with us for long.

Kenya being the mother of this subsidiaries, also has a fantastic opportunity as we drive towards our technology-led business to take full advantage around those efficiencies. Those again will be able to pass in terms of earnings.

The Kenyan market remains quite resilient. We've seen this market undergo a number of ups and downs around the macro space, but it has remained resilient.

We'll be capitalizing that now that we've repositioned ourselves much, much better, but also supporting our fellow growing subsidiaries, whether it's from a product perspective or literally supporting subsidiaries that sit outside Kenya. We are well positioned internally, we are well positioned from a market perspective.

James, where I sit, I'm waiting for the battle.

Absolute. It's not about Equity Bank Kenya, it's about the customer base in Kenya and operating in the region.

That is what DRC has to compete with: its trends internally. Speaking from where I'm watching, I think, Moses, we can credit you for strengthening the internal control environment.

Willy, what is the chance for DRC given what Moses have said?

Thank you, Dr. James.

I will approach it differently. I think for us in the DRC, the objective is not so much on beating Kenya, but is how we provide values to the DRC, our markets, we can deliver on our vision.

I think everybody in this room, and maybe the audience on our technology, DRC is known for its great potential, which unfortunately is yet to be delivered. What we are seeing so far, I think it's a good trend, but I continue to believe, as we continue to partner with not only Kenya, but the group as well, we can really position our DRC to untap that potential which is sitting there, but which is yet to be on the table for the people of the DRC to benefit.

The wealth of the DRC is known to be in trillions, but if you look at the GDP, it remains one of the lowest per capita, even lower. We believe, as we continue to invest into ourselves, our people first of all, in the DRC, because of the reality of undereducated population, but also with the support of the technology, we can really, really mine that potential.

Hopefully down the line, we can first bring the values to the benefit of the people of the DRC, and across the board, if the group can benefit, Kenya will benefit as well. Maybe to end, I still believe the DRC is well positioned to beat Kenya in three years.

As I said, that's not the priority. The priority is really to deliver on our vision so the people of the DRC can benefit in terms of supports in loans, supports to accessing financial platforms, and so on.

Thank you.

Mr. Stephen Irungu Kimani, I will leave it to you to judge who will be the customer base, the internal strength of Kenya beat the potential and the size of DRC and endowment of DRC.

The bet is yours. The race is not about profitability, is not about balance sheet, is fulfilling the customers in Kenya, is fulfilling the needs of DRC, is awakening DRC to transform its people, to transform itself.

The reforms in DRC are moving on the right direction. The infrastructure investment is meaningful, and the world will not transition without the strategic mineral resource of DRC.

Coming to you, Angela. Conversation has focused on the banking group.

Why are shareholders not asking about the insurance group?

Thank you, James, and good morning to shareholders and board members. I think, as mentioned earlier, we have also invested time in the transformation that you talked about.

As you well know, customers know that one of the challenges the insurance industry has faced is not having suitable products and services. We've invested time, together with our colleagues in the banking group, to really understand what the customer pain points have been.

We've also invested quite a bit in building the team, but also invested quite a bit in the transformation of the capabilities of our staff, particularly the relationship managers who are really customer advisors. James, I believe, as you had earlier said, we're now ready to scale.

I believe that having all of our subsidiaries turning into profitability within six months of operations gives the shareholders comfort that we do run a profitable business and we've gotten our quality right. We can now join the race with Kenya and DRC for scale.

Shareholders, it's not about financial inclusion, it's not about economic inclusion, it's about economic resilience, it's about protection. The banking group will generate enormous opportunity, because whatever wealth it helps to create, that wealth needs to be protected.

It's inclusive protection. I guess I would agree with Angela that the insurance group will be bigger than either of these two subsidiaries by 2030, and by 2040, both of them combined.

Because essentially, that wealth, that factory to be built will need to be insured. Lives that are transformed will need to be insured.

Drivers of wealth creation need keyman risk insurance. The cars we buy will need to be insured.

Essentially, wealth needs to be stored, and insurance assets and investment products provide that opportunity. Equity Banking Group is a safe, secure partner to generate wealth.

Equity Insurance Group is the right partner to secure and make that wealth resilient. The insurance can be as big as the bank, because it's the same customer who needs a diverse basket of products.

That's how we have organized ourselves. We have an investment bank to make the wealth machines know how to invest long-term, to diversify his asset management.

That's how the group is organized. I think I will now open to the plenary for questions.

I'm glad we have answered all the questions. Okay.

Yeah.

All right. Good morning, everyone.

Jimmy Mbogo from Citizen TV. Two questions.

Maybe, James, this is something you might have mentioned earlier: the split between the subsidiaries and the Kenyan business. We just want to know how they are contributing to the profitability of the entire group.

Number two, bringing the conversation back home to Moses, there has been a lot of conversation around KESONIA, and I just want to know, now that your NPLs are coming down, how many of your customers have you been able to reprice?

Moses, do you want to go first?

Yes, thanks, Jimmy. Jimmy, the KESONIA was a joint mechanism between Kenya Bankers Association and Central Bank to find an effective transmission mechanism of the monetary policy.

It wasn't driven towards pricing, it was to ensure that monetary policy can be immediately transmitted, and that it's a unified way in which the industry was able to do this. All of us adopted this in February, and we've transitioned.

Majority of the banks, as you'd understand, Jimmy, went for a Central Bank rate base as opposed to actually adopting KESONIA, which was a bit more complex to calculate. The good thing is that the two rates have merged: KESONIA and CBR.

Anytime then we'll be having monetary policy rate changes, then that will be impacting the loan pricing. Since KESONIA has since transition into the new risk-based pricing, Jimmy, we've not had a rate hike.

What we had was actually a rate drop earlier in the year, and our customers were immediately able to benefit that. Going forward, and we hope that the rates would come down earlier in the next year, customers will be able to enjoy that repricing down immediately, cuz that's the mechanism we've allowed ourselves with Central Bank.

I'm glad also the courts have pronounced themselves around one of the areas around Section 44 around how do you deal again with rate prices. We're in a good space, that it's a much more transparent market now.

You can be able to compare banks favorably. We like what Central Bank does to highlight how each bank is pricing.

Thanks, Jimmy.

My namesake, deposits: the region is contributing 51% and Kenya 49%. Loans: region is contributing 54% and Kenya 46%.

Total assets: the region is contributing 52% and Kenya 48%. As we said, Kenya is more efficient.

When it comes to revenue, they are precisely 50-50. When it comes to profit before tax, Kenya contributes 53% and the region contributes 47%.

Next question.

Good morning, everyone. Christopher Chege, junior analyst at Mwango Capital.

Listening to you, sir, and the directors, what I'm hearing is that Equity Group is, in fact, betting on income growth within the region. Maybe your Chief Economist can shed some light in regards to what the income growth for individuals within the region is expected to be within the next three to five years?

Also, earlier in the year, you did say that Equity is focusing on major acquisitions around Angola, Zambia, with the special focus on Angola, considering the Lobito pathway. Where are the discussions reached around these specific acquisitions, and if there are any acquisitions around Angola that can be expected by the end of 2026?

Thank you very much. Brent, do you want to take the question on incomes?

Charlie, the question is on GDP of the economy. On your way out to pick the investors' briefing, Charlie has given us a table with each country its GDP position.

In case you have them top of mind.

Not straight to hand. Income growth is quite hard to measure because what you're asking first is, what is household income?

I was talking to the research department yesterday of one of the central banks in the region, and it's a very hard number to do when 85% of employment is informal. How is there a measure?

How can you measure this? In fact, our database is possibly one of the better measures of income growth, because we understand customers in Kenya, and we've seen the history and development over time.

I can give you proper numbers after the conference, but at the moment, I'd just say it's a remarkably difficult number to estimate well.

I think and I say this being aware that the board members are in the room, that given that we have completed the transformation of the organization, and as Therence said, it's now execution, my office has been charged to execute our ambition of being in 15 countries by 2030. The preference, as you have rightly said, is through mergers and acquisitions.

With the shareholder behind you, constantly reminding me that I have to balance between dividend payout and acquisitions, that's what we keep on. We are committed.

We are persuaded, because as I said, it's positioning just in time. As the Chief Economist or Economic Advisor said, that within the next 15 years, this region will be very different.

The timing at which you do the acquisition matters and counts, and that is why that commitment is very loud and clear. Another question?

Yeah.

Purity from Abojani Investments. Just one question.

I've noticed an increase in the other income, massive increase in other income in Q2. What's driving that?

Did you have any NPL write-backs, for instance?

Let me say the increase in profitability is not a chance, it's not an event, it's not a one-off, it's normal business. This question was asked the last quarter of last year, it looked abnormal.

The first quarter even became better. The second quarter of this year became better.

This income is coming from trade finance significantly. It's coming from the loan appraisal fee, as you can see, the loan book has started growing significantly.

It's coming from the technology group, the transactions have started increasing significantly, and is also coming from insurance business. The insurance income falls under other incomes.

Our prediction is that other incomes will not be 45% this time next year, it will be approaching 50% because of that significant growth. We have 60% of our balance sheet in cash.

That as it transition to the real economy and transform into credit, you could imagine the level of other income it will generate as the systems with almost 100% stability and availability, that it will bring the dependability and reliability, and the transaction will significantly convert from cash to digital transactions on our platform. Lastly, we expect that the insurance business are trying to use the banking infrastructure to cover the entire 24 million customers with insurance product, that it will generate disproportionately more income than interest income.

The other question? Yes.

Good morning. I'm Reynold Acheng representing Think Business Africa.

I have a question with regards to the banking business within Kenya. Given that digital penetration is already sitting at 98%, what is going to be the next efficiency driver that will continue to boost Kenyan business?

Moses, what will drive greater efficiency of Kenya given digitization is at 98%?

Thanks, Reynold. What we have currently, Reynold, is our old infrastructure.

That infrastructure, we can leverage on it much more effectively round how we interact with customers, and that's how we are positioning our entire infrastructure in there to ensure that then these become more service points to develop more lead generations as opposed to serving points for customers. With that, then you're able to grow your top line much more.

We are going to dedicate a lot of our capacity in lead generation and converting all our branches into service points. That's where we see then the efficiency coming out in that you dedicate a lot of your effort in growing that top line.

Our cost to serve also reduces. I don't need to keep cash in branches as much as I need to do.

I don't need to keep all securities the way I used to do. There are a lot of granular advantages around that, but the best positioning for us is that our customers will have a dedicated service point that we're able then to channel all our energy.

Thanks.

Antony Mwithega asks, "Please give us an update on the progress made towards the setup of Equity asset management business." It is true, we are working on setting up the asset management because we have read the market.

The market in the past have relied on banks, savings accounts, but looks like now the market wants high-earning asset as opposed to savings. Essentially, we have obtained a license for asset management.

We're in the setup place, and we think that that will be a formidable business given the brand of Equity Bank and the infrastructure for distributing assets and the IT backbone that we have, and our ability to distribute assets that are manufactured even globally. We may find that that will be another asset class of line of business as we diversify that will help us consolidate the market because of the brand and reputation.

Another question from Justin Mwangi: "What's driving the massive increase in other incomes in Q2?" Justin, I'm sure you heard us say it is trade finance heavily.

We are orchestrating and enabling cross-border trade significantly. The growth in loan book has started double-digit number, and that again is generating significant non-funded income, and the insurance business.

A YouTube question, and I will read it verbatim: "Impressive NPL ratio at 9.5% is significantly below the industry's 14.6%. What's the magic behind this?

Any actions initiated?" I think, and I'm really glad this has come to be true, because I remember early last year, I committed that this year, it's not just a single digit, but we'll be expecting NPLs to ride between 7% and 8% before the end of the year.

Broadly, I had made the commitment that was 17 loans that were in the process of realization. The fourth quarter, I said we had managed to obtain the legal process getting completed, and we have realized these has started coming through.

We have also gone into supporting customers and saying, what can we do to transform our customers' businesses? We are seeing increasingly supporting the customers with the capability of the group.

We have also become firm without having to wait for too long to realize depositors' money when we see the business is stuck. A myriad of sort of efforts.

I can't see Christine Brown in the room. Sam G., is there anything else you want to add?

Very good. As we have said, we have given you a feel of where we shall be.

I think Stephen Irungu Kimani, your questions, seems we have answered most of them. The first one is sustainability of earnings, and we have said it's not about sustaining, it's growing.

It's all about growth story. Transformation is over, it's execution and growth, and you could expect a better second half than the first half.

Net interest margin, Brent has dealt with that. Justify the loan growth, the distribution between SME, agriculture: you have been told what we are really focused on is agriculture.

Kenya is 16% of the loan book is now in agriculture. The target is at 30% so that we become the agent of transformation of agriculture in the continent.

Brent has said manufacturing is starting to really show signs of take-off, but the biggest opportunity is in trade and particularly cross-border trade. Asset quality, I think we have answered your question and given you our targets.

Regional subsidiaries, we have dealt with that fully. These were very many questions, but Kenya versus regional performance, I think we have answered.

DRC expansion, I think we have answered. Capital adequacy, we have told you the ratio are at 18%, we have significant headroom to fund our business growing forward.

What we have is the tension between dividend payout and the investment to fund investment. We'll stick to the policy strictly, the lowest 30%.

It's not 30%, it's 30% of If you look, profit this year has grown by 32%. Even if we stick to the policy of 30%, it means dividend will grow by 32% at the of year, and that grows given the yields are high.

Dividend policy, we have answered that. Technology investment: the group described technology-led transformation as a major growth driver.

What measurable financial benefits are you now seeing from this investment in terms of cost-to-income ratio? You can see we have come from 51.7% to 48.6%, and we can predict that a cost-income ratio of 40% is clearly visible, and we have a pathway towards that before the next three years, built on scale that we can build on the platform, and also the attractiveness of the customer, and hence the volume.

Equity Group has demonstrated strong profit growth, but from an investor's perspective, what do you believe is the biggest constraint to maintaining return on equity at current levels over the next three years? Brent, is there a constraint?

No, as I mentioned, it's not so much the constraint at the levels we can achieve. One of the key considerations, in addition to expanding the ROEs, is the quality of those ROEs.

I made comments around what we're doing around the non-funded income and, as James mentioned, what we're doing on the technology front and the efficiencies that will come with that. Also importantly, the technology doesn't just drive efficiencies.

I think that's just a first-order effect of what we are looking to do with technology. There is also the cross-selling of our capabilities and remaining connected to the customers on these platforms.

There is a revenue consideration with the earlier question that was asked in terms of the 98%, 99% that has been transacted already online. With these different verticals of the group, the insurance, the bank, technology, and within that, different products, it's our ability to provide seamless solutions to the customer and leveraging off these platforms' technology to do those cross-selling and interactions.

At the risk of sounding confident, but we should be, we don't think asset quality is a constraint anymore. You can see the trend.

We are confident on how we are managing. As I've told investors, the stock of 100 billion that we hold is legacy stock.

Most of it is seven years. We have learned how to lend better.

The last six years, we have not seen build-up of NPLs. We're dealing with historical.

The reason why it is declining fast and will decline faster is because we are the tail end of realization of the securities. Again, because coverage is at 70%, it's not the recovery that is driving performance of our profitability, because we didn't need to provide, because we knew we will recover.

The securities are good. The constraint on capital requirement, as I said, at a return of 4.5% on asset, we feel that business can fund itself and still pay dividend.

Competition, I think we will need now to compete with a platform, because we are more of a platform. Regional expansion, capital base is good.

I don't want to say there are no constraints, but certainly not the ones you have listed, because those ones, we have worked with them in mind, and so we have inbuilt the capability, because those are predictable constraints, to manage them in advance. Brent?

Maybe, James, you can do a very easy calculation and it goes to the question whether provisioning is improving the bottom line. If you just simply take our profit before tax before provisions and you contrast the growth, we actually grew faster.

Because of the provisions that we added, it did lower the growth. Revenue is growing very fast, costs are being contained to some extent, and hence why the cost-to-income is reducing.

Our profitability before you adjust for provisions is actually growing faster. Because we've added provisions, and yes, the cost of risk may have come down because of the denominator, the loan growth growing quickly, it's not because of provisions or lower provisions that resulted in the earnings growth.

It's just that pre-provisioning operating profit calculation will give you a sense of the true operational performance.

Brent, there's a specific question here roughly around there, listen to it: "What are the three assumptions underlying management's medium-term earning growth expectation that investors should monitor closely, and what would cause you to revise this expectation?"

Two income state items and one from a geographic perspective. You'll notice the asset mix, and the bank's income statement is driven by the balance sheet.

I mentioned earlier that we have a loan-to-asset ratio of 45%. Historically, before interest rate caps and clearly before we acquired BCDC in the DRC, we had a larger proportion of our balance sheet in the loan book, which is clearly much higher revenue-generating versus the liquid assets that we currently sit on.

That change in asset mix will be a key driver of earnings. It will support managing or sustaining and even expanding the margins.

Asset mix is a key driver. The change from liquid assets to more risk assets will be a key driver.

Secondly, it goes to the diversification of product capabilities. We've just entered insurance three, four years ago.

As James mentioned, it's a small contributor to the other income line. This will continue to grow faster than the banking group.

Other income will be a big driver, especially from the non-bank subsidiaries. Then you'll notice, from a subsidiary perspective, our subsidiaries outside of Kenya are still in their, call it formative stages.

The ROEs are still at around low 20%. As I mentioned, the subsidiaries outside of Kenya is generating 23%, Kenya is generating 35%.

I mentioned and we showed you that graph, our ability to replicate what we've done in Kenya in a shorter period of time and generating those 4% ROAs, where the subsidiaries are currently at 3%. What will further drive earnings is the expansion of returns in the subsidiaries as they gain scale, as the business further establish itself in their markets, which DRC has, and the other subsidiaries will continue to do that.

Asset mix, non-funded income, and subsidiaries outside of Kenya establishing themselves and replicating what we've done in Kenya, those will be key considerations for earnings.

Brent, are your targets specific return on equity, or return on asset, or its economic handle, profit handle?

Let me start at the industry. You'll notice all the large-scale banks in the region, whether you're in Tanzania, whether you're in Uganda, Kenya, and even DRC, large-scale players, because of economies of scale, can generate in excess of 30% ROEs.

It's been really demonstrated in recent results published with the Tanzanian large-scale players, you've seen it with the Ugandans' large-scale players, and you've seen it in our results with what Kenya has produced as a standalone country operation. These are country standalone operations that can generate north of 30%.

Now you overlay this with our regional business, where, in addition to the potential of the standalone countries, there are synergies between subsidiaries. I made the comment around what we plan to do with technology and synergizing not only product capabilities, but our geographic presence as well.

Equity Group, the model we have, especially with what we have with the Equity Group Foundation that acts as a de-risking, capacity-building capability, and it's not CSR, we can generate in excess of 30% over time. We currently at 27%.

Bear in mind, there's a simple math. The 27% ROE that we used, the calculation is essentially year-end last year and June.

If you take what other industry players are calculating, they take previous June and this year June. The way we calculate it is quite punitive.

If you do what our peers are doing, we actually generated on that calculation 29% ROEs, if you do the calculation. It all washes out by year-end, where we use December to December.

I just wanted to highlight that there is underlying momentum. If you take our quarter two revenue growth just for the three months to June, it grew much faster than what we grew in quarter one.

Even when you look at our business at a quarterly basis, at the quarterly run rate, you can see there is underlying momentum both in the income statement, but also on the balance sheet. As I mentioned, for the first time since 2021, Kenya grew quarter on quarter, Equity Bank Kenya grew quarter on quarter 11%.

This is a business that can have double-digit growth and north of 30% ROEs. You'll appreciate that the industry can generate similar.

We believe we can generate higher than industry, and industry is high for our region.

The last question is on sustainability of profits. Kimani, I want to confirm that non-recurring income is negligible, you can take the entire P&L to be sustainable and to use that to predict the future.

Despite answering 20 questions from one shareholder, thank you, maybe, Kimani, we should start to know who is this asking. That's Kimani asking 20 questions.

We have been able to finish our investor briefing and presentation in a record two hours. We have saved one whole hour, and the chairman would be willing to give you 15 minutes, and we save 45 minutes.

Professor Macharia.

Thank you very much, James. Let me start by congratulating management and the whole staff, all the staff of Equity Group Holdings, wherever they are in this region, for the work that you've done to bring us to where we are.

You will realize, as James was speaking about the panel in front and the others who are sitting in the audience, that he has built a very strong management team. It's because of building that strong management team that he has been able to deliver these results, and also that he has the courage to promise continued double-digit and more returns, profit, because he has built an organization fit for the strategy that the board has overseen, which has been developed over the last couple of years.

We are led by a 2030 framework of the Africa Recovery and Resilience Plan. For us as a board to be able to oversee this strategy, to make sure that management is delivering the promise, we have also gone to great lengths to make sure that we have the capability at the board level.

This is the first time in a long time that we are releasing results, holding an investor briefing in the presence of our whole group board. I'll take just a few minutes to introduce our investors and our shareholders and also our customers to our board, the group board.

This group board is very diversified. It is a group board that has brought together men and women with diverse capabilities, deep knowledge of the industry, exposure across the globe.

I don't think, as a chairman, I would look for a better board. This board has been fantastic.

It continues to get very engaged with the business, continues to help management navigate difficult questions, helps management to think big, and helps management to mitigate and run around the risks that are inherent in a business that is undergoing transformation, a business that is expanding both in terms of its depth and also in terms of its breadth, as we look at onboarding 100 million customers and being in 15 countries by 2030. 2030 is not very far, it's just a couple of years.

Many people will ask, we are only in six countries, how are we going to be in 15 countries in a couple of years? I can tell you that this is not something that we've taken lightly, is something that we have worked on.

We have put in place mechanisms that will allow us to use technology to scale in a short time. This has been done.

We will not be the first. We have looked at financial institutions across the globe that have been able to grow in a couple of years, add on board more than 100 million customers.

I'm sure our customers across the region have noted recently our stability, the stability in our systems. That's what we've been working on, so that once our systems are stable, then we can go out and scale our business so that we are able to keep the promise that we have given our customers.

I'd like to, just James, a couple of minutes to introduce our board. I want to start with Farida Khambata.

Farida, just stand so that people can see you. Farida has a wide experience in international organizations.

She is a former Vice President of IFC, regional director in charge of portfolio. She brings on to the board deep knowledge of investments and understanding of the various regions.

Farida is credited with having been one of the thought leaders in creating the emerging markets thought. We are in an emerging market.

Who would be better to sit in our board to help us think about the emerging market? Next is Dr.

Evans Fayia. I should have said Farida is from India, worked a lot in America.

She's been a member of the board of one of the largest corporate in India, the Tata Group. Evans is a Kenyan, but based in the US.

He's a technology and innovation leader. He has led various companies, startups with now more than 100 patents to their name.

He's also an author, written books on strategy and strategy execution. He's the chairman of our ICT and cybersecurity committee, and Farida is our chair of sustainability committee.

Next to Evans is Sam Mwale. Sam Mwale is a Kenyan.

Sam Mwale is a Kenyan who is currently working out of the US, running a consultancy firm. Sam has deep knowledge in both private and public sector, having been an administrative secretary in the government of Kenya.

He was a member of the Economic and Social Council in Kenya that crafted Vision 2030, and I think he was the first secretary of that. He understands.

He is a former CEO of Eagle Insurance Brokers. Like I said, he has very deep both political and economic understanding of the region.

Next to Sam is Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder. Lakshmi has spent a lot of her time working in the World Bank, where she rose to Vice President for Risk.

She is also a professor at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She's a world-renowned risk expert, and she's the chair of our risk committee.

She makes sure that whenever we are thinking very big, we are also thinking about those risks and how to manage those risks. On the other side, Jonas.

Jonas is a Zimbabwean. Jonas has a wide experience in financial services across Africa.

He has been CEO of Old Mutual in Zimbabwe and rest of Africa, has very deep knowledge of financial sector and especially insurance sectors. He's recently been working with Afreximbank in Cairo.

He's a deep knowledge of strategy and integrated financial services. Next to Jonas is not a member of the group board, but a member of our Tanzanian board.

She served for nine years in the group, and we still call on her experience, Evelyne Rutagengwa. Evelyne is from Rwanda.

She's a former Auditor General of Rwanda. She actually established the current Office of the Auditor General in Rwanda.

She has served not only in the group board, she has served in our Ugandan subsidiary and also served currently in Tanzania. Evelyne has been the person in the board, and because of her deep knowledge of audit and control systems, when our subsidiaries have had problems, she has been the go-to person to go and help everybody walk the straight and narrow path.

Next to Evelyne is Nick O'Donohoe. Nick is from the UK.

He is currently a fellow at Harvard University. Nick was the former CEO of the British International Investment, which tells you what great knowledge he brings.

He has very deep knowledge not only in financial systems, but also impact financing. He's the chair of our strategy and investment committee.

Next to Nick is Engineer David Muteba. Engineer Muteba is from DRC, and he worked for a long time in various engineering companies in Canada, and the government of DRC asked him to come and run their water sector.

He is the CEO of the national water utility company in DRC. He has done an incredible job in trying to get water to the population of Kinshasa.

He was telling me that he needs to be spending, I think, the equivalent of more than 10 billion shillings every year for the next 10 years to be able to distribute water around Kinshasa. He has very deep knowledge in running companies from a strategic perspective.

He understands people. He has very, very special skills in helping companies develop highly effective teams.

He in terms of our board, he now understands, when we are talking about DRC, we're talking about how DRC has become a very important subsidiary, he brings to the board the deep knowledge of DRC, his industry knowledge, and his expertise. Next to David is Obadia.

Obadia is chairman of our audit committee. Obadia is from Rwanda.

He's a former Auditor General of Rwanda, and you know how efficient the public service in Rwanda is. As the Auditor General, he's played a lot of part in their putting in the control systems in the public service.

He has worked across East Africa, has been one of the leading lights in the professional societies for auditors in East Africa. Thank you very much.

There's one extra board member who is not with us today, Eliane, who is also from Rwanda, based in Canada, who is an expert in both sustainability, technology, and innovation. She's a professor in McGill University, but also she's the CEO of CIFOR-ICRAF.

She's based in Nairobi. She joined the board recently.

She's not been able to be with us this morning. Shareholders, you can see that this team, the group team, matches very closely James's management team.

When we work together, we have formed a very, very highly effective and a high-performance team. I can assure you that that vision that we have of growing into Africa's leading integrated financial services group, which is technology-enabled, which is technology-led, which will have a great impact on the socioeconomic transformation in Africa, we are sure that we are all up to the task.

There has been questions sometimes about why is it that, with this very successful group, we have not been able to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace? All that I can tell the investors is, watch this space.

We've put in place a strategy that will truly differentiate us. I think, and I can say very proudly, that maybe we don't have any other African-grown organization that will be as impactful in the next couple of years as Equity Group Holdings.

Thank you very much. Asanteni sana.

Thank you, our Group Chair. Members, thank you for being with us for the last two and a half hours.

I want to, as I kindly request us to be upstanding for the Equity anthem, to also remind us, as we leave, the investor booklet, the press release, and the financial statements are already on our website. For the analysts, we will continue to engage with yourselves.

Also to remind the analysts that we will have the investors call on Monday. We will share the details.

The Equity anthem. Equity yetu kweli yatufaa, wafanyakazi na wateja wote.

Tuko pamoja, lengo letu moja, kuyaboresha maisha ya watu. Mimi ni member, wewe ni member, wajumuishwa na Equity.

Equity yatujali, yatuwezesha, yaboresha maisha ya watu. Mimi ni member, wewe ni member, wajumuishwa na Equity.

Equity yatujali, yatuwezesha, yaboresha maisha ya watu. Kujitolea kwa huduma bora, kuendelea kwa uaminifu.

Kuhudumia wote kwa furaha, waungilifu, thulani imarika. Mimi ni member, wewe ni member, wajumuishwa na Equity.

Equity yatujali, yatuwezesha, yaboresha maisha ya watu. Mimi ni member, wewe ni member, wajumuishwa na Equity.

Equity yatujali, yatuwezesha, yaboresha maisha ya watu. Huduma bora kwa jamii yetu, inaenea barani mwetu.

Washikadau wanafurahia, maendeleo wanayoyaona. Mimi ni member, wewe ni member, wajumuishwa na Equity.

Equity yatujali, yatuwezesha, yaboresha maisha ya watu. Mimi ni member, wewe ni member, wajumuishwa na Equity.

Equity yatujali, yatuwezesha, yaboresha maisha ya watu. Tumsifu Mungu kwa uwezo wake, Mungu wetu tunamshukuru.

Kwa ufanisi tunaouona, barani mwetu twasonga mbele. Mimi ni member, wewe ni member, wajumuishwa na Equity.

Equity yatujali, yatuwezesha, yaboresha maisha ya watu. Mimi ni member, wewe ni member, wajumuishwa na Equity.

Equity yatujali, yatuwezesha, yaboresha maisha ya watu.

Let us bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, our God in heaven, we want to thank You for this morning, for this meeting.

We thank You, Lord, for it has been very successful. As we now look forward to the remaining months of this year, we humbly commit into Your hands all our plans, that Lord, You may walk with us all our strategies.

We pray that Lord, You shall establish them, and that You'll make every effort of our leaders and staff crowned with success. We pray for favor in the market, favor with the investors, shareholders, with the regulators, customers, and every stakeholder connected to this institution in all the markets of our operations.

We particularly, Lord, want to pray for the group board and all the boards in our subsidiaries, praying also for the executive management. We pray that Lord, You shall grant them clarity of vision, sound governance, and wisdom in the strategies and the decisions they make in order to shape the future of this organization.

We pray also, Lord, that You grant them discernment to steer the organization with clear insight. We pray this morning for all our investors, all our shareholders, customers, partners, service providers, and all that have contributed to the performance of this organization.

We ask for divine protection over all those who serve in this organization. We graciously ask that peace, stability, and prosperity will mark the remainder of this year.

Now as we depart, Lord Almighty, we pray that Your peace will keep us together, and that Lord, we shall be grateful to come back here and thank You even for greater results in the end of the year. This is our humble prayer of faith in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.