The Bank of Punjab announced its Q1 2018 earnings today, reporting a profit of Rs. 1.94 billion up by 24.36% from Rs. 1.56 billion in the same quarter last year, which is above market expectations.
The earnings per share of the bank decreased to Rs. 0.73 in this quarter as compared to Rs. 1.00 in the same period in 2017.
Along with the quarter results, the Bank also declared its FY17 results.
The bank posted a loss of Rs. 3.31 billion as compared to a profit of Rs. 4.88 billion. In 2017 the bank declared a loss of Rs. 1.65 per share as compared to Rs. 3.10 earnings per share.
The bank booked a provision charge of Rs. 14 billion against Non-Performing Loans, reporting that due to the financial viability created through capital management measures and superb performance of the bank in the past few years, it managed to book the previously mentioned provisioning charge during 2017. This charge was earlier than expected because of the overall performance of the bank.
During 2017, Net Interest Margin of the bank improved to Rs 15.6 billion as compared to Rs. 12.2 billion during 2016 reflecting a healthy growth of 28%. The non-markup income of the bank was down 13% year on year as capital gains booked remained on the lower side.
As on December 31, 2017, the deposits of the bank stood at the level of Rs. 556.3 billion as compared to Rs. 453.2 billion in 2016, showing a growth of 23%. The gross advances and investments stood at Rs. 341.7 billion and Rs. 242.4 billion.
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The bank’s total assets on December 31, 2017, stood at Rs. 649.5 billion.
Net Interest Income (NII) of the BOP improved by 42% YoY to Rs. 4.7 billion in Q1 2018 which was better than the expectations. This was likely due to strong balance sheet growth and recovery in interest income against NPLs which led to strong earnings growth during the quarter.
BOP also booked provision reversals of Rs. 182 million in Q1 2018 on the back of recoveries against NPLs. Reversals in Q1 2017 stood at Rs. 441 million.
After the result, BOP’s script at the bourse hit the circuit breaker of Rs. 10.59 (+5%) with a turnover of 9.28 million shares.
