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SECURITY Bank Corp. announced on Thursday that its profit last year
rose despite the low interest rate environment since it grew its
loan portfolio, pulling up its interest income.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock
Exchange, the lender said its net income for 2007 jumped by 42.4
percent to P2.7 billion year on year. It said the performance was
consistent with the bank’s sustainable 57-percent compound annual
earnings growth rate in the past three years.
Security Bank attributed the improvement to the
55-percent increase to P52.01 billion of its lending portfolio,
which has brought in P4.6 billion in net interest income, 11.6
percent higher than the previous year.
“One of the bank’s objectives was to
steadily grow our portfolio with quality loan assets while ensuring
a favorable yield profile by leveraging on the relationships we have
cultivated with our clients over the last few years. The shift in
our balance sheet profile and the consequent change in the earnings
profile will ensure continued growth in core earnings in spite of
the relatively low interest rate environment,” Alberto S.
Villarosa, the lender’s president and chief executive, said.
The lender’s other income also went up by 32.9
percent to P3.4 billion year on year as fees and commission income
surged by 96 percent to P447.9 million on the back of the expansion
in its customer base. Miscellaneous income also rose by 57 percent
to P588.3 million as the bank trimmed its asset disposal losses that
“characterized” the previous year. As a result, the improvement
in its other income offset the 22 percent decline to P1.1 billion in
its trading gains by year-end.
Expense growth also slowed down last year by
three-percent to P3.3 billion even as the bank improved its average
return on assets to 2.03 percent against the 1.9 percent posted the
previous year. These results translated to an earnings per share of
P8.22, 43 percent better than the P5.77 in the previous 12-month
period.
-- Likha C. Cuevas-Miel
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