The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has paid a record dividend to shareholders as the multilateral lender reported its biggest-ever half-year profit.
Cairo-headquartered Afreximbank posted a US$534.7mn profit for the first six months of the year, the bank said last week, a 30% improvement on the first half of 2025. Earnings were buoyed by a 22% year-on-year jump in net interest income to US$1bn.
Total assets grew to US$52.3bn by the end of June, largely driven by higher loans and advances.
Afreximbank, founded in 1994, specialises in providing trade finance credit lines to commercial banks, but also lends directly to large corporates and invests in infrastructure and energy projects.
Its interim results followed a record full-year 2025 group profit of US$1.15bn, from which the bank’s shareholders voted in June to pay a dividend of US$347mn, with a further US$50mn in dividends allocated to a concessionary finance window.
Since its inception, Afreximbank has regularly paid dividends to shareholders that include all African states as well as commercial lenders, export credit agencies, other multilateral institutions and private investors.
Some shareholders choose to reinvest their dividends in additional Afreximbank shares rather than taking the payout in cash, according to the bank’s yearly reports.
The rate of reinvestment by shareholders has grown in recent years. Between 2020 and 2025 shareholders opted to reinvest an average of 60% of the dividends in Afreximbank shares, almost double the average of 31% between 2009 and 2019.
It is unusual for multilateral development banks to distribute part of their profits among shareholders. Major entities such as the Asian Development Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development do not issue dividends, although the similarly Africa-focused Trade and Development Bank does pay dividends to some classes of shareholders.
“While a profit-oriented and a dividend payout model is less common among rated [multilateral lending institutions], the bank’s dividend policy does not appear to pose a significant risk to capital adequacy, as most dividends are reinvested by the member states into Afreximbank,” S&P Ratings said in a June update on the lender.
The bank’s payout ratio – the percentage of profit allocated to dividends – has risen from an average of around 25% between 2015-19 to a range of 25-30% since 2020. The lender expects a similar ratio for 2026, according to its full-year guidance.
Afreximbank did not respond to questions for further details on drivers behind its bumper half-year results or how much of the 2025 dividend it expects to be reinvested in the bank’s stock.
The bank has grown its profits and loan book in the face of pressure from some ratings agencies over its non-performing loan ratio as well as a perceived decline in its place in creditor hierarchies when borrowers default.
Both Ghana and Zambia have argued that Afreximbank, along with TDB, should not enjoy the preferred creditor status afforded to other multilateral development banks because it charges relatively high interest rates and pays dividends to shareholders.
Afreximbank announced it had cut ties with Fitch earlier this year, shortly before the agency downgraded the bank’s debt to non-investment grade and “high risk”. Fitch later withdrew its rating of the bank entirely, citing “commercial reasons”. Moody’s had also cut the bank’s rating last year to medium grade for long-term debt, although S&P upgraded its ranking of the lender to BBB+.
S&P assigned the bank a stable outlook, noting its “strong role and shareholder support underpins its enterprise risk profile being strong, limited by its dividend policy and partly private ownership”.
The agency also pointed to Afreximbank’s acceleration in lending over the last 10 years, with total assets more than quadrupling since 2015. “This sustained and rapid growth distinguishes the bank from other smaller, private sector-focused regional peers and underscores its mandate to serve as an important partner in facilitating trade across the continent,” S&P said.
The bank said its ratio of non-performing loans fell from 2.4% to 2.2% during the first half of 2026.
