Alpha Bank 9-Month Pretax Profit In Romania Falls 80% On Year

11.28.2011 By Florentina Dragu

Greece’s third largest lender Alpha Bank Monday said its pretax profit in Romania dropped 80% to EUR7 million in the first nine months of the year, on lower operating revenues.

In January trough September 2010, Alpha Bank reported pretax profit of EUR34 million.

The bank said operating income in Romania fell 20% to EUR138.7 million in the first nine months, while operating costs rose 1.5% to EUR68.8 million.

Alpha Bank booked provisions worth EUR63 million in Romania over the analyzed interval, down 12% in the year.

The bank reported total loans of EUR3.4 billion at the end of September, down 7% from EUR3.6 billion in December last year.

Alpha Bank's exposure to Romanian bonds was EUR360 million, over half of its EUR600 million overall exposure to foreign treasuries.

Group-wide, Alpha Bank posted a net profit of EUR41.6 million, down 45% on the year. The bank reported a loss after impairments for the Greek Government bond portfolio of EUR566.7 million.

The bank announced in November that it has approved the merger with peer EFG Eurobank, in a move aimed to consolidate their operations. The agreement is pending approval from the National Bank of Greece.

The new group will have leading positions across all major banking segments in Greece and will be the biggest bank in southeast Europe, Alpha Bank said. In Romania, the merger is set to propel the subsidiaries of the two banks to the third position based on assets, from the lower half of the top 10 presently.