Ahlibank’s Net Profit QR647.7 million for the year ended 2015
18 January 2016
Ahli Bank QSC (ABQK) is pleased to announce a net profit of QR 647.7 million for the year ended 2015, an increase of 7.7% over the corresponding period last year (2014 – QR 601.3 million).
Summary Financial Highlights:
- Total Operating Income for 2015 grew by 6.6% to QR 995.9 million. This growth was driven primarily by the bank’s Non-Interest Income, which grew by 28.3% to reach QR 234 million.
- Cost to Income Ratio contained at 29%, despite significant investments in human capital, IT, branding and infrastructure.
- The Bank’s Balance Sheet grew by 2.9% over December 2014 to QR 32,299 million, driven by growth in Loans and Advances.
- Total Loans and Advances stood at QR 24,045 million witnessing a year over year growth of 12.8%.
- Stable Funding consisting of Medium Term Borrowings increased by 34.9% to QR 2,237 million in December 2015 from QR 1,659 million in December 2014. Stable Funding as a percentage to Total Liabilities improved to 8.1% in December 2015 vis-à-vis 6.1% in December 2014.
- Non-Performing Loans ratio (NPL) stood at 1.24%, reflecting sound asset quality.
- The Return on Average Assets (ROAA) remained steady at 2.1%, indicating bank’s focus on earnings quality over growth.
- Return on Average Equity (ROAE) stood at a steady 15.1%, despite, a year over year increase in equity by 8.8%.
Commenting on the full year results of 2015, Sheikh Faisal Bin Abdul-Aziz Bin Jassim Al-Thani, Chairman and Managing Director of Ahlibank stated, “We continued to deliver another year of steady performance in a tough market environment. This has been a year of consolidation for the Bank, where we started to realise the benefits of our strategies executed in the past years. We continued to strengthen our maturity profile in 2015 by increasing our long term funding, which now accounts for 8.1% of our total liabilities. This is in line with our overall funding strategy of maintaining stable funding. As recognition of our excellent performance, Fitch affirmed the bank’s, Long Term Foreign Currency Rating of ‘A+’, reflecting Ahlibank’s satisfactory liquidity, sound capitalisation and asset quality”.
The Chairman added,” We have received two awards from the Asian Banker. Firstly, in recognition of the successful implementation of a Capital Management Solution, we were awarded the Compliance and Risk Technology Implementation Award for the year 2015. In addition, we also won the Best multi-channel implementation in the Middle East 2015 award”.
The Board of Directors of Ahlibank has proposed a cash dividend of 15% (QR 1.5 per share) and a bonus dividend of 5% (1 new share for every 20 shares held) as the dividend distribution for the year 2015. The dividend proposal intends to maximise shareholders’ wealth, at the same time takes into account the current market conditions and the Bank’s internal capital requirements.
These results are based on the audited financial statements, which are subject to the final approval of the Qatar Central Bank and the shareholders. The Board of Directors and its management would like to thank the Qatar Central Bank for its guidance and support.