Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

NCB Net Income Grows by 25.2 Percent in 2006 | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Jeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat- The Chairman of The National Commercial Bank (NCB) Board of Directors, Abdullah Salim Bahamdan, announced that the Bank has achieved net income totaling SR 6,273 million for the year 2006, an increase of SR 1,262 million (25.2%) over the year 2005 and total operating income grew to SR 9,292 million during the year 2006 compared to SR 7,491 million in the last year, an increase of 24%.

Total assets grew by 6.8% to SR 155,706 million on 31 December 2006 compared to the year end of 2005 and net loans and advances increased to SR 77,245 million. Customer deposits reached SR 117,499 million, an increase of 12%. In addition, NCB’s total shareholders’ equity increased to SR 23,999 million and the ratio of equity to assets stood at a robust 15.4% driven by continuous improvement in profitability.

The Bank continued to maintain its high profitability ratios as return on average assets (ROA) increased to 4.2% and the return on average equity (ROE) was 27.5% while earnings per share (EPS) improved from SR 5.57 in 2005 (adjusted retrospectively for the issuance of bonus shares and shares split) to SR 6.97 in 2006.

The Chairman also announced that the Board of Directors decided to recommend to the extraordinary General Assembly to increase the paid-in capital from SR 9,000 million to SR 15,000 million by capitalizing SR 6,000 million from general reserve through the issuance of two bonus shares for every three shares. This will increase the total number of outstanding shares from 900 million to 1,500 million shares of SR 10 nominal value per share. These recommendations are subject to the statutory approvals from concerned parties and the final

approval of the shareholders at their extraordinary General Assembly meeting to be held during the first quarter of 2007. Sheikh Abdullah Bahamdan added that the increase in capital has been driven to support and strengthen the Bank capital base to enable the Bank to fulfill its strategy of growth in the current activities and to expand into new ones.

NCB’s Chairman concluded: “The foundation of these excellent results is the strong level of trust that NCB has earned from its valued customers, the Bank’s broad range of products and services, and the deep commitment of the Bank’s management and staff to improve service quality and to forge closer ties with our customers”.