Bailed-out Spanish bank sees profits jump 83 percent

Bailed-out Spanish financial giant Bankia announced Saturday an 83 percent jump in its 2014 net profits to 747 million euros, though the group remains under investigation for an ill-fated 2011 stock listing.

The jump in gains at the bank was due in part to a change in accounting norms that pushed down 2013's profits, the bank said unveiling last year's results.

However, the bank also benefited from an increase in revenues, a drop in costs and a decrease in dubious lending.

It "was an important year for us," Bankia President Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri told reporters.

Bankia nearly collapsed in 2012 and had to be bailed out by the Spanish government to the tune of 24 billion euros (over $26 billion).

In mid-February a Spanish court ordered former IMF head Rodrigo Rato and other bankers to pay an 800-million-euro (over $895 million) court bond as it investigates the Bankia group's doomed 2011 stock listing.

Rato was chairman of the group at the time and, along with other executives, is suspected of misrepresenting Bankia's accounts ahead of the offering.

Thousands of customers who say they lost their money after being misled into converting their savings into Bankia shares have brought separate lawsuits against the group.