Kenya's Housing Finance H1 pretax profit up 3 per cent

NAIROBI, KENYA:  Kenyan mortgage firm Housing Finance Group said on Tuesday its first-half pretax profit rose 3 percent to 699.65 million shillings ($7 million), thanks to rising interest income.

Net interest income rose to 1.71 billion shillings from 1.34 billion shillings in the first six months of 2014, while net loans and advances to customers rose to 49.98 billion shillings from 38.81 billion shillings.

Earnings per share fell to 2.79 shillings from 4.11 shillings - a drop attributed to the listing of an additional 116 million shares during the year from a rights issue.