NBG declares a 26% annual fall in net profit in Q1 for SEE operations

TIRANA, June 1נThe first-quarter net profit of the National Bank of Greece (NBG) from operations in Southeast Europe (SEE) fell by 26% on the year to 37 million euro burdened by higher provisions, the bank said on Friday.
Quarter-on-quarter, NBG’s net profit from operations in SEE showed a 13% rise, the bank said in a report, adding that the region contributed 12% of the group’s profit in the period.
In SEE, the Greek lender has units in Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Serbia, Albania and Cyprus. The NBG group, operating in Greece, Turkey and SEE, closed the first quarter with a 21% annual fall in its net profit to 317 million euro.
NBG also said its pre-provisions earnings in SEE rose by 6.0% on the year to 73 million euro and net interest income rose 11% on the year to 117 million euro.
“All the countries of the region continued to post profitability in the first quarter of 2009, both in terms of operating and net income, absorbing the extra provisions made for loan loss,” NBG said.
“Total lending in SEE stood at 9.4 billion euro, up 25% year-on-year, though unchanged since the beginning of the year, as loan repayments are virtually equivalent to new loan production,” the bank added.
NBG’s network in the region reached 751 branches and 9,600 employees at the end of March.
Last week, Raiffesen International declared its net profit in 2008 rose by 16.7% to 982 million euro with SEE operations contributing 33% of pre-tax profits for the banking group. Alpha Bank, on the other hand, declared an annual fall of 58.2% in the groups consolidated net profit in Q1-2009 with SEE operations recording a 33.7% fall in pre-tax profit.