BCR made almost 178 million euros in net profit at the end of August, calculated under the international accounting standards. This is an increase of 50.2% against the first eight months of 2005, Andreas Treichl, Erste Bank's CEO announced yesterday.
The assets of the largest bank on the market exceeded 11.5 billion euros, almost 24% higher than in 2005, given that the portfolio of loans granted to clients went up by more than 46%, to nearly 6.7 billion euros.
Treichl presented the financial results for the first eight months during the "Capital Markets Day" conference held in Bucharest yesterday by Erste Bank, BCR's future majority shareholder.
Andreas Treichl, Erste's top man, said BCR's profit target for 2006 was 250 million euros.
"BCR's profit will go up by 40% a year or even more by 2009, using the 250 million-euro estimate for 2006 as a basis," Treichl said. Treichl learned the favourable verdict of the Constitutional Court yesterday afternoon during the conference. The Court endorsed the law on the privatisation of BCR, dismissing the motion to challenge filed by a group of opposition senators. This was the last obstacle in the way of privatisation.
"I'm not even going to think about what might have happened if the Constitutional Court had delivered a negative ruling. We took a risk organising this event without knowing the verdict first, but now we are certain we will meet the new deadline set for October 20," stated Treichl.
The head of the Austrian group said that, based on the latest evaluations, the costs to integrate BCR would amount to 320 million euros at most, about 70 million euros less than first estimated. Consulting, training, and streamlining costs are now put at 100 million euros compared with the 90 million euros initially estimated, IT investments for online banking, and network optimisation go up from 100 million to 120 million euros, and additional provisions will stand at no more than 100 million euros, without any other adjustment necessary.
Treichl expects BCR to achieve a significant improvement in its cost/revenue ratio, from the estimated 53% projected for 2006 to "maximum" 40% in 2009. The return on equity (ROE) should improve from a little more than 23% this year to more than 35% in 2009.
Eight months into the year, BCR had a 51.9% cost/revenue ratio, from 56.2% in the same time in 2005, and a ROE of 23.9% compared with 17.9%.
As for the return on investment in BCR, Erste expects it to be of 10%, excluding the cost of the funding to the bank.
As soon as the law on the privatisation of BCR is published in the Official Gazette, Erste will transfer approximately 2.2 billion euros, which the Romanian state is entitled to get for the stake it sold, into an escrow account opened with Citibank London.
Andreas Treichl stated that no talks were being held with the SIFs (the financial investment companies), which are currently minority shareholders in BCR, in view of acquiring their 30% share. Talks will be held in the next few years, though, with Erste considering dropping its plans to list BCR in case it secures an agreement that allows it to buy that stake.
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