GDANSK (Reuters) -Santander Bank Polska, which is being acquired by Austria’s Erste Group, reported a 28% rise in second-quarter net profit on Wednesday, helped by higher interest income and lower loss provisions.
Second-quarter profit was 1.02 billion zlotys ($275 million), ahead of the 872 million zlotys forecast in a Reuters poll.
Net interest income for the quarter rose to 3.18 billion zlotys, up from 2.9 billion zlotys a year ago and slightly above analysts’ estimate of 3.16 billion zlotys.
Spain’s Santander, the bank’s parent company, sold a 49% stake in its Polish unit to Erste Group in May for 6.8 billion euros ($7.86 billion), in one of the biggest cross-border deals in Europe in recent years.
The transaction, which cuts Santander’s stake to 13%, is expected to close around the end of the year, Santander BP CEO Michal Gajewski said during a press conference.
“A major advantage of this planned change will be international cooperation and the ability to support our clients in new and very promising markets” he added.
The second-quarter results were supported by a sharp decline in provisions for expected credit losses, which dropped to 123.4 million zlotys from 292.1 million zlotys a year earlier.
However, the results were hurt by legal provisions related to its Swiss franc mortgage portfolio, after the bank warned in June that a revised risk estimate would reduce second-quarter pre-tax profit by 697.1 million zlotys.
The legal provisions for such loans totalled 738.8 million zlotys in the quarter.
The company’s results also reflected the sale of its 60% stake in Santander Consumer Bank to its parent group in June, which resulted in a loss of 355.6 million zlotys as the unit was reclassified as a discontinued operation.
Gajewski said it was too early to discuss a potential change of name and logo following the takeover by Erste.
Erste said it expects the deal to boost its earnings per share by more than 20%, while Santander projected a net capital gain of around 2 billion euros from the transaction by year-end.
($1 = 3.7035 zlotys)
($1 = 0.8653 euros)
(Reporting by Julia Kotowska; Editing by Sumana Nandy, Tom Hogue, Christian Schmollinger and Sharon Singleton)
