Yahoo Finance Spain's CaixaBank reports profits halved
Spanish lender CaixaBank posted Thursday a first-quarter net profit of 152 million euros ($210 million), a 54.6-percent drop from the figure at same time last year when it was boosted by one-off gains from acquisitions.
Spain's third biggest bank by capitalisation said its ratio of bad loans as a portion of total loans fell to 11.36 percent from 11.66 percent in the same year-ago period.
It was the first time that its bad loan ratio has fallen since 2008, when Spain's decade-long property boom collapsed, causing millions of people to lose their jobs.
Net interest income, or earnings from loans minus funding costs, inched up 0.1 percent to 993 million euros.
"What we have noticed, especially during the final quarter, points to an improvement in net interest income, a gradual reduction in doubtful debts and the stabilisation of damaged assets," CaixaBank vice president Joan Maria Nin told a news conference.
CaixaBank's 2013 first-quarter results were boosted by the first time consolidation of earnings from Banca Civica and Banco de Valencia, two troubled regional savings banks which the lender acquired.
