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Asia Commercial Bank says income rose 20 percent
Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Vietnam’s biggest listed company by market value, said pretax profit rose 20 percent to VND2.56 trillion (US$146.5 million) last year.
“It was earnings from our currencies and bond trading that buoyed total income,” Ly Xuan Hai, ACB’s chief executive officer, said by phone, without elaborating further. Net profit was estimated at VND2.25 trillion, a 28 percent increase from VND1.76 trillion in 2007, Hai said.
Investors bought more bonds in Vietnam last year as an economic slowdown spurred concerns about the worsening global financial crisis. Vietnam’s benchmark bonds gained in 2008’s second half, with the yield on five-year notes falling to 10 percent from 19.7 percent. The Vietnamese currency slumped 8.5 percent, the biggest annual slide since 1998.
The country’s economy grew 6.2 percent last year, the slowest pace since 1999, according to the General Statistics Office. The expansion fell short of a government target of 6.7 percent.
Ho Chi Minh City-based ACB’s total assets rose to more than VND115 trillion, from about VND87 trillion in 2007, propped up by an increase in deposits which reached VND88.2 trillion, according to an emailed statement sent by email. Outstanding loans totaled VND34.35 trillion, it said, without providing a comparable figure.
The bank, which is partly owned by Standard Chartered Plc, rose for the first time in seven days, climbing VND100, or 0.4 percent, to 28,100 on Friday on the Hanoi Securities Trading Center, which fell for the fifth straight day, losing 0.3 percent to close at 102.84.
Bloomberg
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