November 11 (SeeNews) - Slovenian banking group NLB, the parent company of Nova Ljubljanska Banka [LJE:NLBR], said that its consolidated after-tax profit nearly doubled to 377.8 million euro ($389.4 million) in the first nine months of 2022 from 205.5 million euro in the like period of last year.
NLB Group's net operating income rose 13% year-on-year to 563.7 million euro in January-September, while net interest income grew by 17% to 353.1 million euro, NLB Group said in an interim financial report on Thursday.
"NLB Group business results in the first nine months are excellent and do not yet show the level of stress that the market expects. We are confident that they should translate into added value for our shareholders with the expected payment of dividends, firstly as this year’s second tranche in the total amount of 50 million euro, which is 2.50 euro per share [this will amount to promised 100 million euro in dividends in 2022] expected to be paid out after the General Meeting in December, and then with all subsequent pay-outs," CEO Blaz Brodnjak said.
The non-performing loan (NPL) ratio decreased to 2.7% at the end of September 2022, from 3.7% a year earlier, whereas the group's assets totalled 23.498 billion euro at the end of September, up from 21.297 billion euro a year earlier.
"After entering the Slovenian market with NLB Lease&Go in the spring of 2020, leasing operations have been gaining momentum so much so that a new leasing company was recently established in North Macedonia, and all regulatory approvals for the purchase of a leasing entity in Serbia were obtained. All this gives us confidence that leasing will once again become a significant part of the Group. It is planned that in its mature phase, leasing will contribute more than 1 billion euro to the total assets of the group, through organic and potentially also inorganic growth," supervisory board president Primoz Karpe said.
Elsewhere in Southeast Europe, the group is active in Bosnia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro.
($ = 0.97017 euro)
Nova Ljubljanska Banka d.d. is among the biggest banks in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here