{"id":7861,"date":"2012-02-10T13:55:58","date_gmt":"2012-02-10T11:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/02\/update-2-absa-earnings-buoyed-by-lower-bad-debts\/"},"modified":"2012-02-10T13:55:58","modified_gmt":"2012-02-10T11:55:58","slug":"update-2-absa-earnings-buoyed-by-lower-bad-debts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-2-absa-earnings-buoyed-by-lower-bad-debts\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 2-Absa earnings buoyed by lower bad debts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Headline EPS 1,350 cents, vs 1,115.7 cents<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Year dividend 684 cents, vs 600.5 cents consensus<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, Feb 10 (Reuters) &#8211; Absa Group,<br \/>\nthe South African bank majority owned by British lender Barclays<br \/>\n, met expectations with a 21 percent rise in full-year<br \/>\nprofit, after a sharp drop in bad debts helped it overcome weak<br \/>\ndemand for credit.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Like rivals in Africa&#8217;s top economy, Absa has been hit by<br \/>\nslack demand for loans, as companies wait for a recovery. It has<br \/>\nresponded by trying to rein in costs and boost fees.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Absa, the first of South Africa&#8217;s top four banks to report<br \/>\nearnings this season, said on Friday bad debt charges fell 15<br \/>\npercent, while its loan book shrank 1 percent.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Bigger rival Standard Bank has been aggressively<br \/>\ncourting new customers in South Africa. Africa&#8217;s biggest bank<br \/>\nhas said its South African business saw a 50 percent jump in<br \/>\npersonal and business loans in 2011.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Avior Research analyst Faizal Moolla said Absa&#8217;s loan book<br \/>\nwas a disappointment. &#8220;They are a bank and they need to<br \/>\nbasically take on additional risk. If they do not start growing<br \/>\ntheir advances, they are going to lose market share.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Absa deputy chief executive Louis von Zeuner told reporters:<br \/>\n&#8220;A tight credit policy obviously took us out of the relationship<br \/>\nwith key dealers and manufacturers and we are slowly but surely<br \/>\ngetting our way back in there.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Headline EPS 1,350 cents, vs 1,115.7 cents * Year dividend 684 cents, vs 600.5 cents consensus By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura JOHANNESBURG, Feb 10 (Reuters) &#8211; Absa Group, the South African bank majority owned by British lender Barclays , met expectations with a 21 percent rise in full-year profit, after a sharp drop in bad debts [&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-7861","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\/7861","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=7861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}