Vozrozhdenie Bank, one of Russia’s top 30 banks, saw its first quarter 2011 IFRS net profit jump 227 percent year on year, to 317 million rubles ($11.32 million), the bank said on Thursday.
The bank’s net profit was above a consensus forecast of analysts polled by RIA Novosti who expected its net financial result at 252.3 million rubles.
“We managed to retain our key advantages – strong capital position and liquid balance sheet and keep developing our core businesses particularly focusing on cost optimization,” Vozrozhdenie Bank Chairman Dmitry Orlov was quoted in a statement.
The bank’s total assets grew by 18 percent in the first three months of 2011 year on year to 174 billion rubles ($6.1 billion) mainly due to the 34 percent increase in the bank’s loan portfolio, the statement said.
The bank’s loan portfolio before provisions rose 32 percent to 126 billion rubles and exceeded by almost two times the banking sector growth rate of 16.3 percent, Vozrozhdenie said.
The bank’s corporate loan book increased by 10.1 percent or 9.9 billion rubles in the first quarter of 2011, including 6 billion rubles worth of loans granted to small and medium businesses. The bank’s retail loan portfolio rose 5.2 percent to 17.5 billion rubles.
The non-performing loans ratio fell to 8.78 percent from 11.1 percent; in absolute terms it fell to 11.9 billion rubles from 12.1 billion rubles year on year.
Shareholder’s equity increased to 17.1 billion rubles ($604 million) as of March 31, 2011 from 16.4 billion rubles ($558 million) in the first quarter of 2010 due to capitalization of retained earnings of the bank.
Operating expenses decreased by 20.1 percent to 1.8 billion rubles primarily owing to the reduction of personnel expenses as bonuses for the bank employees had been paid in the fourth quarter of 2010.
MOSCOW, May 19 (RIA Novosti)