Bank of Sharjah sees 38% decline in first quarter profits

Dubai: Bank of Sharjah reported on Sunday a 38 per cent year-on-year decline in its net profit for the first quarter of 2019 as it incurred losses on assets and registered lower non-interest income.

The bank recorded Dh52 million in profits for the quarter, compared to Dh84 million a year earlier. It did not provide comments on outlook, but figures it released showed a 457 per cent hike in the impairments it paid on assets, reaching Dh25 million in the quarter.

The figures come out two to three months after other publicly-listed companies disclosed their earnings for the first quarter, with companies now a few weeks away from disclosing second-quarter results.

Other figures in Bank of Sharjah’s income statement showed the bank saw an 8 per cent rise in net interest income to Dh119 million, while non-interest income plunged by 31 per cent year-on-year to Dh33 million.

The results bring earnings per share down 38 per cent to 2.5 fils a share.

On the balance sheet side, loans and advances were little changed, at Dh17.2 billion at the end of March 2019. Deposits were also nearly flat year-on-year at Dh20.2 billion.

The bank’s net liquidity dropped in the first quarter by 18 per cent to Dh4.68 billion from Dh5.69 billion in the same quarter of 2018.