National Bank Of Kuwait Q1 Net Profit Up 3.2%

National Bank of Kuwait, the Gulf Arab state’s largest commercial lender, reported a 3.2 per cent rise in first-quarter net profit on Sunday, edging ahead of analysts’ expectations.

Net profit was KD83.9 million ($298.6 million) in the three months to the end of March, compared to KD81.3 million a year ago, it said in a bourse filing.

Five analysts in a Reuters poll had predicted KD80.70 million in net profit on average for the quarter.

NBK, which opened a new office in Dubai in March, saw its international banking profit grow 15.5 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

Group chief executive officer Isam Al-Sager said the bank would maintain a strategy focused on diversification, international expansion and a stronger push into Islamic finance.

Earlier this year he took over as CEO from Ibrahim Dabdoub, who ran NBK for three decades and helped transform it from a local lender into the Gulf’s fifth largest bank by assets.

Sager said on Sunday that NBK’s first-quarter profit was mainly driven by core banking revenues. Net operating income grew 7.6 per cent year-on-year to KD158.4 million, while loans and advances rose 9.6 per cent to KD10.95 billion during the period.

During the first quarter, the bank’s non-performing loans (NPL) to gross loans ratio dropped to 1.93 per cent from 2.72 per cent a year earlier.

The bank’s vice chairman Nasser al-Sayer said last month that Kuwait’s domestic operating environment was improving. The market is seeing some acceleration in the tendering, award and execution of some large infrastructure projects.