Banca Transilvania SA, Romania’s second-largest publicly traded bank, said first-quarter profit almost doubled as the bank focused on boosting market share and profitability.
Net income rose to 31.8 million lei ($12 million) from 16 million lei a year earlier, the Cluj-Napoca, Romania-based bank said in a preliminary earnings statement sent to the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Operating income before provisioning declined 7 percent to 202 million lei from 216 million lei.
Romania’s economy is poised to recover from a two-year recession and grow 1.5 percent in 2011, according to the International Monetary Fund. Government workers recovered part of a 25 percent pay cut last year and the unemployment rate fell to 5.9 percent at the end of March.
“The first-quarter results are promising,” Banca Transilvania (TLV)’s Chief Executive Officer Robert C. Rekkers said in the statement. “We will continue to focus on our profitability and market share increase.”
The bank set aside 161 million lei for bad loans, 16 percent less than a year earlier. Bad loans amounted to 7.8 percent of lending. Net assets rose to 22 billion lei from 21.6 billion a year earlier, the bank said.
Gross profit should grow 33 percent this year to 180 million lei as net provisions decline 10 percent from 2010 to 575 million lei, the bank said in a separate statement today after a general shareholders meeting. The bank plans to add 296 million lei from previous years’ reserves to its capital.
