CIMB Q2 Profit Drops

Malaysia's CIMB Group Holdings Bhd.

reported a 9.9% decline in its second-quarter profit. CIMB's quarterly net income dropped to 949.9 million ringgit ($301 million), or 11.4 sen a share, versus a year-ago profit of 1.05 billion ringgit, or 14 sen a share. CIMB's revenue dropped 1% to RM3.40 billion versus RM3.44 billion. Its net interest income rose 10% to 2.18 billion ringgit, while non-interest income fell 19% to 1.08 billion ringgit. In its first half, the group's revenue dropped 6% to RM6.945 billion versus RM7.389 billion. Its earnings dropped 17.3% to RM2.016 billion in the six months, compared to RM2.440 billion in the year-ago period, which included a RM365 million net gain from the sale of CIMB Aviva. Excluding the exceptional gains, its Business As Usual H1 net profit slipped 2.8% y/y. CIMB's operating income dropped 1.1% y/y to RM3.407 billion. "It was a difficult first half, due mainly to the tough conditions in Indonesia and the sharply weaker Rupiah, which combined to decrease CIMB Niaga's PBT contributions by 19.8%. Low financial market volumes and volatility across the region led to weaker IB and Treasury businesses. Nevertheless, excluding Indonesia and last year's exceptional gain, our PBT was up 5.9% Y-o-Y due to the strong performances of our Malaysian consumer bank, CIMB Bank Singapore and CIMB Thai," said Dato ‟ Sri Nazir Razak, Group Chief Executive, CIMB Group.