SocGen targets higher profit in Romania by end-2013 - FT

The challenge in Romania, where Societe Generale owns the second-largest bank in terms of assets, was to bring down the costs of risk provision for bad loans, Financial Times quoted Societe Generale's chairman and chief executive, Frederic Oudea, as saying on Sunday.

"We view this piece of news as neutral, since our model also assume a markedly improvement in BRD-GSG’s profitability in 2013 due lower risk costs," Raiffeisen Capital & Investment Research said in a daily report on Monday.

The net profit of the Romanian Development Bank, BRD, dropped by an annual 88% to 39.4 million lei ($11.3 million/8.7 million euro) in the first six months of 2012, affected by high risk costs, the bank said earlier in July.

(1 euro = 4.5159 Romanian lei)