Serbia's Komercijalna Banka 9-mo net profit rises 8.8% y/y - table

Komercijalna Banka's net interest income decreased by 1.1% to 9.5 billion dinars, while the net fee and commission income grew 4% to 4 billion dinars, Komercijalna said in its nine-month financial statement filed with the Belgrade Stock Exchange.

Return on assets (ROA) stood at 2.3% in September, up by 0.2 of a percentage point compared the end-December figure, while return on equity (ROE) edged up to 13.7% from 12.6% at the end of last year.

Komercijalna Banka's loan portfolio amounted to 176.4 billion dinars, while deposits totalled 318.5 billion dinars at the end of September.

In June, Serbia's finance ministry said it has received six valid expressions of interest in the sale of Komercijalna Banka and invited qualified investors to take part in the next stage of the tendering process. In May, the finance ministry invited expressions of interest for the purchase of at least 50.1% shareholding interest in Komercijalna, including the entire state-owned stake, which then stood at 41.75%. Meanwhile, the Serbian government has bought a 6.8% stake in Komercijalna from German investment fund DEG and Sweden's Swedfund for a total of 5.1 billion dinars on the Belgrade Stock Exchange.

Komercijalna Banka was the third-largest lender in Serbia in terms of assets at the end of last year, behind Banca Intesa and UniCredit Bank Srbija, according to Serbian central bank figures.

(1 euro = 117.406 dinars)