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UNB Consolidated Profits Up by 22 Per Cent in 2008

ABU DHABI - Union National Bank (UNB) has earned a consolidated profit of Dh1.441 billion for the financial 2008, reflecting an increase of 22.2 per cent over Dh1.179 billion in the previous year.

The operating profit of Dh1.653 billion against Dh1.196 billion in 2007, rose 38.2 per cent over the previous year’s outturn, reflecting satisfactory performance especially given the extremely challenging business environment and difficult trading conditions that exists globally.

In 2008 the UNB took additional collective impairment of around Dh120 million, increasing the general provisions to Dh329 million, which constitutes 0.6 per cent of the gross loans and advances.

The bank did not release its Q4 financial results.

Mohammad Nasr Abdeen, CEO of UNB said “Amid the global financial turmoil and the unprecedented economic downturn facing most of the major economies in the world, the results for UNB Group for the year ended 31 December 2008 were satisfactory the Group posting its highest ever profit.” Key financial indicators have continued to register an improvement with attributable return on average equity of 19.9 per cent over 18.7 per cent in 2007, and return on average assets of 2.4 per cent in 2008 over 2.4 per cent in 2007.

In spite of the inflationary pressures and ongoing investments in infrastructure and human capital the efficiency ratio for the year 2008 improved to 27.9 per cent from, 29.4 per cent in 2007.

The ratio of non-performing loans to gross loans was 0.7 per cent as at 31 December 2008 over 0.9 per cent in previous comparable period, and the coverage ratio, which has been over 100 per cent in the recent years, further improved to 170 per cent.

The loans and advances grew to Dh50.4 billion as at 31 Dec 2008 up against Dh37.4 billion in 2007, an increase of 34.9 per cent year-on-year. The loan growth was funded mainly by customers’ deposits which increased by 23.1 per cent to Dh49.5 billion versus Dh40.2 billion in previous year.

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