Byblos Bank has issued its financial results for FY-2014, as net income posted $167 million, recording a surge by 12% year-on-year.
The Bank’s net income during the fourth quarter of 2014 stood at $61 million, rising by 53% y-o-y and 29% Q-o-Q, according to EFG Hermes round-up report.
Meanwhile, Byblos Bank’s net profit growth was driven by lower provisioning costs during FY and Q4 of 2014. In addition, trading income was also strong in Q4-2014.
EFG Hermes has commented on the Bank’s performance during FY 2014 saying that the earnings growth has recovered in 2014, following two years of successive earning drops in 2012 and 2013.
“Net interest spreads have recovered Y-o-Y in FY2014; however, they are still very low in the context of Lebanese banks, at just 87bps (up from 80bps in 2013),” EFG noted, adding that “Loan growth was also slow at just 5% Y-o-Y. Byblos Bank is well-capitalized (CAR at 16.5% on Basel III), and has a well-provisioned NPL portfolio (120% NPL coverage ratio as of December 2014).”
The comment concluded “Byblos remains a low ROE bank (c12% in FY2014), and asset growth dynamics are likely to be also sluggish in 2015. We reiterate our Neutral rating on the stock.”
