Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB), in which the world's biggest financial services company Citigroup is a stakeholder, yesterday posted a net profit of 1.59 billion yuan (US$199 million) for the first six months of 2006, up 30 percent on the same period last year.

 

The increase in profit, mainly driven by the bank's loan business, was roughly in line with analysts' predictions.

 

They estimated the bank's profit for the whole year would increase by the same rate, although the outlook was clouded by investigations into an alleged loan scam involving an SPDB branch.

 

According to a mid-term report released by the bank yesterday, its prime operating revenue amounted to 12.7 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) in the first half of the year, up 23.2 percent over the same period last year.

 

With total assets of 631 billion yuan (US$79 billion), the joint-stock commercial bank reported an earning of 0.41 yuan (5 US cents) per share in the last six months, a year-on-year increase of 31 percent.

 

Its net asset value per share stood at 4.35 yuan (54 US cents) at the end of June, a 15 percent increase compared with last June.

 

"The growth is very close to what we expected," said Li Yamin, a banking analyst with the Shanghai Shenyin Wanguo Research and Consulting Co.

 

"In the first quarter of this year SPDB witnessed an increase of 29 percent in net profit, a little higher than that of other joint-stock banks including the China Merchants Bank and China Minsheng Banking Corp.

 

"The increase mainly comes from the rise in income from interest and loans, which accounted for 80 percent of its profit," she added.

 

SPDB, in which Citigroup bought a 4.6 percent stake in 2003, and plans to increase its stake to 19.99 percent, said earlier this year that it was targeting 18 percent annual earnings growth for the next five years, after posting an average 22 percent gain in the previous five-year period.

 

It reported an earning of 0.64 yuan (8 US cents) per share in 2005, making it very attractive to institutional investors.

 

Last month the bank disclosed that it was investigating questionable mortgage loans totalling 126 million yuan (US$15.75 million), but it has yet to report any losses.

 

At the end of March, the bank's core capital adequacy ratios stood at 4 percent while China's banking regulator encouraged lenders to sell bonds and shares to boost their capital adequacy ratios, preparing them for greater competition in 2007 when restrictions on overseas banks are lifted.

 

To address the capital shortage, SPDB was last month given a green light to issue 3 billion yuan (US$375 million) worth of subordinate bonds on inter-bank bond markets.

 

It is also about to issue 700 million A shares later this year, raising an estimated 6 billion yuan (US$750 million).

 

(China Daily July 11, 2006)