FGB earnings hit Dh 1.33b
abu dhabi — Abu Dhabi’s lender FGB earned Dh1.33 billion in the first quarter of the year, which was effected by economic challenges.
The earnings fell six per cent yearon-year on lower fees, commissions and Islamic financing income. Operating income fell five per cent yearon-year to Dh2.146 billion and in a quarter on quarter comparison it drop sharply 21 per cent.
Net interest and Islamic finance income grew flat to Dh1.586 billion, however it fell four per cent comparing with previous quarter.
Fees and commission income plunged 27 per cent year-on-year, the lender said in a regulatory filing to Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.
Loans and advances were up seven per cent year-on-year to Dh152.5 billion; deposits dropped two per cent to Dh140.8 billion; assets grew flat at Dh227.4 billion.
Commenting on the results, Abdulhamid Saeed, FGB’s managing director and board member, said: “During the first quarter of 2016, FGB performed well and in line with our expectations.” The Group continued to demonstrate resilience in an operating environment marked
During the first quarter of 2016, FGB performed well and in line with our expectations
Abdulhamid Saeed, MD and board member, FGB
by challenging global market conditions resulting in a slowdown in overall economic business activity, the managing director said.
“As we remain focused on maximising value for our shareholders, we are firmly confident in our ability to build earnings momentum through the remainder of the year and beyond,” he said.
André Sayegh, CEO of FGB, added: “During the first quarter of 2016, we continued to execute our key strategic priorities – not only to improve our value proposition across the organisation, but to also ensure that we maintain a strong and healthy foundation to support the sustainable and disciplined growth of our business.”
Due to prevailing global market conditions, our priority was to focus on long-term sustainability in returns, rather than short-term revenue growth, in order to maintain strong asset quality, which is in the best interest of shareholders.
During the last quarter, he said “we continued to deliver good momentum across our core businesses and within our risk appetite framework, ending the period with improved credit quality metrics with a Non Performing Loan to Gross loan ratio at 2.6 per cent and a coverage ratio comfortably above 100 per cent.
We also maintained FGB Group net profit above 60 per cent of revenue. This is a result of our well established best-in-class operating efficiency, which is reflected by a cost-to-income ratio at an industryleading level of 20.3 per cent. Finally, our credit profile was affirmed in February by Standard & Poor’s, which assigned an “A” rating to FGB with a stable outlook.”