{"id":12874,"date":"2012-07-28T01:40:11","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T23:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/update-2-absa-looks-to-africa-as-mortgages-sour-h1-results\/"},"modified":"2012-07-28T01:40:11","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T23:40:11","slug":"update-2-absa-looks-to-africa-as-mortgages-sour-h1-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-2-absa-looks-to-africa-as-mortgages-sour-h1-results\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 2-Absa looks to Africa as mortgages sour H1 results"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* H1 headline EPS 602.3 cents vs 638.5 cents<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Net interest income R11.9 bln vs R11.62 bln<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Credit losses jump nearly 40 pct<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Shares down 3 pct this year, underperforming rivals<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, July 27 (Reuters) &#8211; Absa Group, the<br \/>\nSouth African unit of Barclays, is looking for<br \/>\nsub-Saharan acquisitions to boost future profit after reporting<br \/>\na drop in first-half earnings on Friday, hit by souring<br \/>\nmortgages at home.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Absa, South Africa&#8217;s third-largest bank and its biggest<br \/>\nretail lender, has been slow to capitalise on Barclays&#8217; wide<br \/>\npresence on the continent, trailing behind fast-moving rival<br \/>\nStandard Bank.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>It is now scouring east Africa for a possible acquisition<br \/>\nearly next year and is scheduled to start insurance operations<br \/>\nin Zambia in August, after launching similar operations in<br \/>\nMozambique and Botswana.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;East Africa is our next focus area and we are evaluating<br \/>\nacquisition opportunities in this region with a target date of<br \/>\nfirst quarter 2013,&#8221; Chief Executive Maria Ramos said at the<br \/>\nbank&#8217;s first-half results presentation in suburban Johannesburg.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* H1 headline EPS 602.3 cents vs 638.5 cents * Net interest income R11.9 bln vs R11.62 bln * Credit losses jump nearly 40 pct * Shares down 3 pct this year, underperforming rivals By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura JOHANNESBURG, July 27 (Reuters) &#8211; Absa Group, the South African unit of Barclays, is looking for sub-Saharan acquisitions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}