OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 6.30pm
NEDCOR Investment Bank on Wednesday posted a 25% rise in earnings, helped in part by a lower tax charge, but suggested that plans to find an international partner might have been put on the back burner.
NIB, whose parent Nedcor Ltd listed 15% of its shares on the Johannesburg market in August, said 1999 had been a year of ”wiping the slate clean” after the difficult merger of its three previously independent units.
New Chairman Michael Katz, who brought law firm Edward Nathan & Friedman (ENF) into NIB last year, said a foreign partner was still a strategic objective. But the first priority was to be stronger at home and it had several deals in sight.
”We are looking at one or two initiatives that would make NIB very attractive (and) the minute those are done we will renew the thrust on the international front,” he said.
This placed less emphasis on NIB’s ambitions for a foreign partner than before. But the bank explained it had decided to focus on smaller initatives, for example with its corporate finance or asset management units, that were easier to conclude.
Analysts said that an international dimension was an important part of NIB’s hopes of growing beyond the confines of the South African market, where it faces stiff competition from some very well-run opposition.
NIB reported attributable earnings rose to R500-million ($79-million) in the 12 months to December 31 from R400-million the previous year.
The bank got a helping hand from an 18% drop in its tax charge to R113-million.
Growth also came from net interest income but fee-based revenues, a key barometer of the quality of an investment bank’s earnings, grew by just one percent due to a weak performance from NIB’s asset management and property units.– Reuters