First Bank of Nigeria Plc headed for a two-month high on speculation the country’s third-biggest lender by market value will pay a dividend for the year through December.

The stock gained 4.9 percent, its biggest intraday advance since December 21, to 9.61 Naira as of 1:41 p.m. in Lagos. A close at this price would be its highest since November 22.

“Investors anticipate that First Bank will be able to pay a dividend of at least one Naira per share for the full year through December, given that its earnings per share for the nine months were already above one Naira,” David Adonri, Chief Executive Officer of Lagos-based Lambeth Trust and Investment Co., a brokerage, said by phone today. “That means that at the current price, the dividend yield will be more than 10 percent, and that means a lot globally.”

Earnings at Nigerian lenders are rising after the West African nation’s central bank fired eight chief executives of the country’s 24 lenders and set up a state-owned company to buy bad debts amassed in 2008 and 2009 and triggered by loans to equity speculators. Asset Management Corp. of Nigeria, as the company is known, had acquired bad debt worth 3.14 trillion naira ($20 billion) by November 28, Chief Executive Officer Mustapha Chike-Obi said then, according to Reuters reports.

First Bank’s net income rose 32 percent to 42.9 billion Naira in the third quarter to September, the lender said in a statement to the Nigerian Stock Exchange on October 13.