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Monday, May 23, 2011

Sri Lanka LB Finance net up 83-pct amid strong lending

May 23, 2011 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's LB Finance said net profits for the March 2011 grew 83 percent to 391 million rupees from a year earlier, with strong growth in lending during the past year and a steep increase in other income, interim accounts showed.

The firm reported earnings of 5.65 rupees for the quarter. In the 12 months to March LB Finance said net profits rose 104 percent to 1,020 billion rupees, giving earnings of 14.73 rupees per share.

In the March quarter the company's interest income rose 35 percent to 1.45 billion rupees, while interest expense also rose 37 percent to 692 million rupees, but the firm also managed to grow net interest income by 34 percent to 761 million rupees.

Unspecified other income rose 232 percent to 172 million rupees. The firm made a 41 million rupee provision for bad debts and investments.

In the past year the firm showed steep expansion of its balance sheet with total assets growth to 28 billion rupees by March 2011 from 17.1 billion rupees a year earlier.

LB Finance's lease and stock out on hire portfolio grew to 16.3 billion in March 2011 from 10.4 billion a year earlier, gold backed loans rose to 5.6 billion rupees from 3.1 billion, other loans rose to 1.9 billion rupees from 1.0 billion.

Its government securities portfolio rose modestly to 1.6 billion rupees from 1.1 billion a year earlier. Funding largely came from deposits from non-bank customers, which rose to 19.6 billion rupees from 12.4 billion a year earlier.

The firm's net assets grew to 2.6 billion rupees by March 2011 from 1.7 billion rupees a year earlier. Amid strong loan growth the firm said its total capital to risk weighted asset ratio fell to 14.2 percent from 17.3 percent.

It is reporting return on equity of 39.04 percent up from 32.2 percent in the year to March 2010 and return on assets of 3.64 percent, up from 3.2 percent.

The firm is 51 percent owned by Vallible One Limited, a firm controlled by entrepreneur Dhammika Perera, which is expected to go public later this year. Perera also owns another 20.3 percent in his personal capacity.

source - www.lbo.lk