Saturday, Apr 27, 2013
BEIRUT (Zawya Dow Jones)--Byblos Bank (BYB.LE), Lebanon's third-biggest lender by assets, said its first-quarter net profit amounted to $35.7 million, after allocating $18.3 million in provisions against doubtful loans.
The latest net profit figure represents a drop of 2.7% from about $36.7 million in the same period of 2012, according to Zawya Dow Jones calculations based on earlier reports. The bank didn't mention the corresponding figure for 2012 in its statement, released Friday.
Byblos said that it has "kept a strong asset quality, thereby allocating specific and collective provisions for credit losses for an amount of $18.3 million during the first quarter of 2013..."
The lender has two affiliates in neighboring Syria where the ongoing fighting is having a negative spillover impact on the Lebanese economy.
Total assets grew 3.5% to $17.6 billion at the end March 2013 compared with the end of 2012. Customer deposits also rose, growing 2.3% over the same period to $13.7 billion, while net customer loans decreased 2.2% to $4 billion.
Write to Shikrallah Nakhoul at shikrallah@zawya.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
27-04-13 0836GMT
