May 24 (SeeNews) - Slovenia's largest lender, state-owned Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), said on Thursday it booked a consolidated net profit of 57.7 million euro ($67.6 million) in the first quarter of 2018, down 29% year-on-year.
"The main difference to the net profit from the previous year is explained by substantial release of provisions occuring in Q1 2017," NLB said in a filing to the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.
The group's net interest income remained unchanged on an annual comparison basis at 75.0 million euro in the three months through March, while net fee and commission income fell 1% to 55.4 million euro.
NLB's gross non-performing loans decreased by 34% on the year to 801 million euro in the first quarter of 2018. Compared to end-2017, they fell 5%.
Gross NPLs as a percentage of total loans fell to 8.8% at the end of March, from 12.7% a year earlier, and 9.2% at the end of December 2017.
In the first quarter of 2018, the total assets of NLB Group rose 3% on the year to 12.4 billion euro.
Net loans to customers decreased 1% to 6.9 billion euro, while deposits from customers rose 4% to 9.9 billion euro.
In December 2013, the Slovenian government stepped in to recapitalize the country's three biggest banks - NLB, NKBM and Abanka, narrowly avoiding an international bailout.
The European Commission said in April that the aid granted to NLB by Slovenia's government in 2013 is unlawful, because the government had failed to deliver on its commitment to sell the bank by the end of 2017.
($=0.852951 euro)
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