CatalunyaCaixa has made a profit of €183 million during the first half of 2013

Barcelona (ACN).- CatalunyaCaixa reported that it has obtained a net profit of €183 million during the first half of 2013. Spain’s fourth largest savings bank, based in Barcelona, has met its previous recapitalisation targets. The interest margin of the bank nationalised by the Spanish Government and the Bank of Spain  reached €264 million, due to a credit transfer made to the publicly-owned banking management company Sareb. This figure does in fact represent a reduction of 5.9% on the same period last year. Despite this decline, the figures are still less than the average decrease that have been seen in the Spanish banking sector. Besides, the solvency ratio stood at 10.21% of the bank’s total resources , with 9.77% of core capital. Between January and June of the current year basic revenue (which includes net income and commissions) stood at €409.7 million and represents 13% of average total assets. The operating profit totalled €542.2 million due to improved gross margin and a reduction in operating expenses by 9.2%, both of which are a result of a cost rationalisation plan. The restructuring plan, approved by the European Commission, will reduce the bank’s costs and bring an improvement in efficiency. CatalunyaCaixa has over €69.16 billion in consolidated assets, a 6.7% reduction compared to the previous year. The reduction is part of the bank’s recapitalization plan.

With regards to loans the bank has given customers a total of €37.22 billion loans. CatalunyaCaixa has a remarkable commitment to Catalonia’s production sector and by the end of the year it will expect to have funded €4 billion for the projects of small and medium enterprises. The total resource attraction amount stood at €41.83 billion, an increase of 2.8% on last year.

Thanks to the bank’s credit risk adjustment and the improvement of customer savings the commercial gap between loans and customer deposits fell by €524 million improving the bank’s financial balances. CatalunyaCaixa’s Loan to Deposit rate is now 129%.

After the transfer of real estate assets of over €100,000 to Sareb made at the end of last year, CatalunyaCaixa has only 2.1% of its assets in property. This is a figure far lower that of the major non-nationalised Spanish banks, which tend to have more than 9% of their assets placed in real estate.

Following the purchase of 32.4% of CatalunyaCaixa’s shares by the publicl-owned FDG (Deposit Fund of Credit Institutions), the FROB (Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring) – the Spanish bailout program created by the Spanish Government in 2009 – still remains the majority shareholder in CatalunyaCaixa with 66% ownership of the bank. 1.2% of the Barcelona-based bank is owned by minority shareholders and the remaining 0.34% corresponds to self-owned portfolio.