Bumper result for St George built on strong business lending
(4 May 2005 – Australia) St George Bank’s dream run continues apace with the bank upgrading its earnings guidance on the back of a record first half profit.
St George posted an interim profit after tax and significant items of A$416 million for the six months to 31 March 2005, up 17.5 percent on the previous year.
The bank upgraded its earning per share forecast for the full year to 11 percent from 10 percent.
A key driver behind the strong result was the bank’s strong performance in lending to small to medium enterprises with commercial loans growing 19.5 percent to A$18.8 billion – twice the market rate.
St George said it would continue to target commercial companies looking to borrow between A$1 and 20 million and that the outlook for business lending remained positive.
Chief executive Gail Kelly said the bank had benefited from having a differentiated proposition from its rivals and still had sufficient scale and room to grow.
"We are benefiting today from the delivery of initiatives undertaken in 2002, 2003 and 2004, which are based on the group’s low risk, organic growth strategy," Kelly said.
‘We continue to invest in the business, as evidenced by the increase in the number of staff in customer facing roles, the continuing strong focus on training and development, and the investment in sales and service infrastructure, such as customer relationship management," she said.
The bank’s residential lending grew by 15.1 percent to A$52.8 billion.
Despite saying she was happy and committed to St George, Kelly failed to hose down the rumours that she will replace David Murray as chief executive of Commonwealth Bank, which have reached fever pitch over recent weeks.
The bank upgraded its earning per share forecast for the full year to 11 percent from 10 percent.
A key driver behind the strong result was the bank’s strong performance in lending to small to medium enterprises with commercial loans growing 19.5 percent to A$18.8 billion – twice the market rate.
St George said it would continue to target commercial companies looking to borrow between A$1 and 20 million and that the outlook for business lending remained positive.
Chief executive Gail Kelly said the bank had benefited from having a differentiated proposition from its rivals and still had sufficient scale and room to grow.
"We are benefiting today from the delivery of initiatives undertaken in 2002, 2003 and 2004, which are based on the group’s low risk, organic growth strategy," Kelly said.
‘We continue to invest in the business, as evidenced by the increase in the number of staff in customer facing roles, the continuing strong focus on training and development, and the investment in sales and service infrastructure, such as customer relationship management," she said.
The bank’s residential lending grew by 15.1 percent to A$52.8 billion.
Despite saying she was happy and committed to St George, Kelly failed to hose down the rumours that she will replace David Murray as chief executive of Commonwealth Bank, which have reached fever pitch over recent weeks.
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