Banco Santander 9-month Profit Climbs

(RTTNews) - Spanish banking products provider Banco Santander, S.A. (SAN, BNC.L) Thursday reported about 77 percent jump in attributable profit for the nine-month period, reflecting a decline in provisions and write-offs.

"After several years of high levels of write-offs and reinforcement of capital, Banco Santander is preparing for a new period of increased profitability," said Chairman, Emilio Botín.

According to the bank, the results for the first nine months reflect a backdrop of deleveraging in mature economies and more moderate growth in emerging markets.

Attributable profit for the period was 3.31 billion euros, an increase of 76.9 percent from last year's 1.87 billion euros. The increase was 110.4 percent, excluding perimeter and exchange rate differences.

Emerging economies, consisting Latin America and Poland, contributed 55 percent of the profit, and the rest from mature markets. Brazil was the biggest single contributor, and accounted for 24 percent of the total, the firm said. . In Spain, net attributable profit was 367 million euros, a decline of 51 percent from a year ago. In the UK, ordinary net attributable profit improved 7 percent to 793 million euros.

Group gross income was 30.35 billion euros in the nine months, down 2.9 percent in comparable terms from the prior year.

Net operating income declined 8 percent to 15.49 billion euros, that excluded the impact of exchange rate and perimeter differences.

Loan-loss provisions declined 3.7 percent to 8.58 billion euros.

Banco Santander said its revenues were steady at just over 10 billion euros in constant euro terms. Costs totaled 14.86 billion euros in the nine months, an increase of 3 percent from the prior year, excluding the impact of exchange rate and consolidation perimeter changes.

The company noted that during the period, deposits rose 5 percent to 633.43 billion euros, while loans fell 2 percent to 686.82 billion euros.

The bank's Basel II capital ratio stood at 11.56 percent at the end of the third quarter, an increase of 0.45 point in the last three months and 1.23 points in a year.

In addition, the Bank intends to maintain its shareholder remuneration unchanged from 2012. It expects to distribute four scrip option dividends of about 0.15 euros a share each, which shareholders can receive in cash or shares.

In Madrid, the shares are currently trading at 6.52 euros, down 0.37 percent, on a volume of 24.82 million shares.

Banco Santander shares closed Wednesday's regular trading at $8.99 on the NYSE.