The FINANCIAL — According to RIA Novosti, Russia's state-controlled retail savings bank Sberbank said on December 7 its net profit under International Financial Reporting Standards in January-September fell 88%, year-on-year, to 10.3 billion rubles ($349 million).
Russia's largest bank, which holds more than half of Russian household deposits, said the net profit plunge in the first nine months of 2009 was attributable to increased provisions for loan impairment.
Sberbank's net profit in the third quarter of 2009 measured 4.25 billion rubles ($144 million), which is below a consensus forecast of analysts who expected the bank's net profit at 4.9 billion rubles ($166 million).
The share of nonperforming loans in Sberbank's loan portfolio rose to 7.9% as of October 1 compared with 1.8% at the beginning of the year, the bank said in a statement.
"As a result of the deteriorated economic environment both in Russia and globally nonperforming loans grew from 94.7 billion rubles [$3.2 billion] as at 31 December 2008 to 436.7 billion rubles [$14.8 billion] as at 30 September 2009," the statement said.
Sberbank's assets decreased 0.4% in the reporting period to 6,707.6 billion rubles ($227 billion). The assets structure was influenced by the reduction of cash and cash equivalents and the increase of investment securities available for sale, largely corporate bonds, the statement said.
Russia's Central Bank holds a controlling stake in Sberbank.
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