Absa Group Limited’s headline earnings for the six months to September 30 grew by 24,6% to R3-billion from R2,4-billion in the same period last year, the company said on Monday.
Headline earnings per share increased by 22,5% to 454,8 cents per share.
Diluted headline earnings per share of 434,9 cents showed an increase of 19,6%.
Chairperson Danie Cronjé said: ”The board is delighted with the achievement of a return on average shareholders’ equity of 25%, up from the 24,1%achieved in the previous corresponding reporting period.
”In the light of this performance and the group’s sound capital position, Absa was able to lift the interim dividend by 68,4% to 160 cents per share.”
Dividend cover was reduced to 2,8 times.
These results are the first reported by Absa under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The transition to IFRS had a minimal impact on the results, the company said.
The main drivers of performance were ”strong advances growth” of 23,7%, an increase of 21,1% in net interest income and ”further improvement in the quality of the advances book”.
Absa’s bad debt ratio improved to 0,35% of average advances from 0,55% for the corresponding period last year and 0,52% for the full year, ended on March 31, 2005.
”Strong transaction volumes” remained a key driver of the 9,1% growth in fee and commission income. This flowed mainly from increased activity by existing customers and an increase in the number of customers from seven-million in March to 7,5-million in September, with particular growth among retail banking customers.
Fee and commission income growth was lower than normal owing to the reclassification of fees as margin income under IFRS and the ”moderate annual fee increases”.
The growth in operating expenditure at 17,9% resulted in an increase in cost-to-income ratio to 59,9% (September 2004: 59%).
Steve Booysen, Absa’s chief executive, said this was in line with the company’s strategy of investing for future growth. It included expenditure on expanding and improving Absa’s branch and automated teller network, regulatory compliance, and employing additional staff in sales and customer service.
The costs incurred as a result of the Barclays transaction were R120-million after tax and the Barclays implementation programme added a further R61,1-million after tax to the company’s cost base.
Booysen was upbeat about prospects.
” am confident that the growth momentum we experienced in the six months ended 30 September 2005 will continue for the remainder of the nine months ending 31 December 2005. I also believe that the positive operating environment will continue and, while we expect that consumer appetite for credit will remain good for the near future, it will not be as strong as it was over the past 18
months”. – Sapa