Ahli United Bank B.S.C. (AUB) reported a net profit attributable to its equity shareholders of $169.9m for the half year ended 30 June 2012, a 5.1% increase over the same period in 2011 (H1/2011: $161.7m). The resultant basic earnings per share were US 3.3 cents, compared to US 3.1 cents achieved in H1/2011. Q2/2012 net profit was 3.7% higher at $87.5m compared to $84.4m for Q2/2011. Total operating income grew by 6.9% contributed by a 9.8% growth in net interest income and 5.6% improvement in fee based income over H1/2011. Key drivers of this increase in operating income were the 4.4% net growth in loans over December 2011, $0.8 MM gains from early retirement of bank's subordinated debt and 14.6% growth in the Non-trading investment portfolio over December 2011. The cost income ratio stood at 30.0% (H1/2011: 31.0%). The Group's asset quality improved with the non-performing loan ratio contained at 2.3% as at 30 June 2012 (31 December 2011: 2.5%). AUB continued its prudent provisioning policy resulting in additional allocations to collective impairment provisions with the overall provision charge for H1/2012 increasing to $93.0m compared to $80.2m in H1/2011. Consequently, the overall provision coverage ratio (including collective impairment provisions) increased to 148% at 30 June 2012 as compared to 135% as of 31 December 2011. The Group's Return on Average Equity and Average Assets for H1/2012 were sustained at 13.3% and 1.3% respectively. Ameinfo
