Scotiabank T&T full profit recovery

Scotiabank reported an 11.75 percent increase in their loan portfolio for the year to October as loans reached $11.8 billion. Most of the growth took place after April and helped to push up revenues and profit in the second half of the year.
At mid-year to April loans, climbed from $10.575 billion at the end of October last year to $10.85 billion, growing by only 2.6 percent, well below the yearly growth to October. At the fiscal mid-point, profits were down in both the April quarter and the half-year, versus the prior year periods. Net income after tax for the July quarter, amounted to $140 million, an increase on the $134 million earned for the same period last year.
For the nine months to June, profits fell to $390 million from $404 million, but it represented an improvement over the decline in the six months results, with profits of $250 million versus $270 million in 2013. The second quarter results of $105 million compared with $128 million, in 2013, was one of the factors pulling down the results, as net revenues fell compared with the prior year.
With things starting to look up from the June quarter, the bank rolled out a respectable 11 percent increase in their October quarter profit after tax to hit $170 million versus $153 million in the same quarter in 2013 and a slight increase in the full year results which moved from $557 million to $560 million.
Loan loss provision rose from $4 million in 2013 to hit $28 million in 2014 and $9 million for the October 2014 quarter. Non-interest expenses were held tightly with virtually no increase in the October quarter with $173 million versus $172 million in 2013 and for the full year $639 million versus $612 million.
Banks make the bulk of their income from lending. If good loans are growing profits will usually grow if not, profits will tend to be much harder to grow. Loans grew 10 percent between July and October or 20 percent annualised but the growth in the October quarter was a more tepid 3 percent or at the rate of 12 percent per annum. This lower rate could well be a more sustainable level going forward, which will be enough to result in increasing profit at a reasonable pace.
Based on the last quarter results, investors should be looking at earnings per share climbing from $3.17 this year to be in the $4 region next year, as the bank overcomes the poor first half of the 2014 fiscal year.
The major concern, has to be the impact that the sharp fall in world oil prices will have on the Trinidad’s economy and the effect on the bank. That is something worth watching. Additionally, interest rates have been moved up, by the country’s Central Bank and could go higher, in the 2015. Rising interest rates can be negative for stocks.