Corporate result: Bank AL Habib’s profit up 58%

Jan-Mar earnings amount to Rs2.5 billion

KARACHI: Bank AL Habib grew its net profit 57.8% year on year to Rs2.5 billion in Jan-Mar, according to the bank’s quarterly earnings report released on Thursday.

The result was higher than expected, as the unusual growth in earnings in the first quarter of 2016 came on the back of a major reversal of provisioning. The bank made a provisioning reversal of almost Rs1.2 billion last quarter as opposed to a provision of Rs971.9 million in the same three-month period of 2015.

However, the bank’s net profit would inch up 10% year on year if the effect of the reversal was excluded from the bottom line, according to BMA Capital. The bank did not announce any cash dividend with the earnings report.

The net interest income post-provisions and reversals of Bank AL Habib clocked up at Rs7.4 billion, up 53.5% from Rs4.8 billion recorded in the first quarter of 2015.

As for the non-interest income, Bank AL Habib reported a year-on-year increase of 4.1% over the Jan-Mar quarter. BMA Capital said non-interest income growth was on the back of an increase in the fee and commission income, which went up 4.9% from a year ago.

Last year, the earnings per share of Bank AL Habib increased 14%, which was largely in line with the average earnings growth recorded by top 20 commercial banks. Growth in its loans as well as deposits during 2015 remained higher than the industry averages.

With 1.6 million shares changing hands, the bank’s stock went up 0.7% on Thursday to close at Rs42.3 per share.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2016.

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