AMMB Holdings Bhd

AMMB Holdings Bhd profit attributable to shareholders for the second quarter jumped to RM230.13mil from RM72.12mil a year ago due to higher net income, underpinned by strong loans growth.

Operating profit was RM360.39mil compared with RM440.43mil.

Net interest income rose to RM458.4mil, up RM107.8mil or 30.8% driven by strong loans growth.
Net income from Islamic banking business also improved from RM126.6mil to RM147.3mil in the current quarter.

These however were partially offset by a decline in other operating income by 52.6% to RM148.5mil as a result of net loss from securities held-for-trading of RM29.2mil and loss on revaluation of derivatives of RM80.7mil. The impact was mitigated by a substantial reduction in allowances for losses on loans and financing to RM25.9mil compared to RM208mil in the corresponding quarter.

The group’s commercial and retail banking operations were the largest contributors to the group pre-tax profit, reporting a pre-tax profit of RM557.7mil followed by insurance operations which contributed RM27.3mil for the half year ended Sept 30 2008.

Gross loans and advances continued to expand to RM57.8 billion to register an annualised growth of 10.7%. The growth was mainly attributed to financing of residential mortgages, passenger vehicles and small and medium sized industries.

Financing for purchase of transport vehicles have expanded by RM365.8mil and account for 41.3% of total loans, followed by loans for residential mortgages which accounted for 18.8% of total loans.

Asset quality continued, with net non-performing loans (NPL) ratio on a 3-month classification basis, decreasing to 3.0%, from 3.7% as at March 31 after it stepped up its loan recovery efforts