The must-have newsletter about Hungary

ACQUISITIONS BOOST OTP EARNINGS

 

Second-quarter after-tax profit of OTP Bank, Hungary’s biggest commercial lender, rose by an annual 18% to 105.4 billion forints (EUR 324.2m), boosted by the consolidation of acquisitions in Bulgaria and Albania, an earnings report released early Friday shows. Earnings were over the 95.8 billion forint estimate by analysts polled by Portfolio.hu. OTP closed the acquisition of the Albanian subsidiary of France’s Societe Generale Group in March, and it closed the acquisition of SocGen’s Bulgarian unit in January. OTP closed acquisitions in Montenegro and Moldova in July, and the financial closure of recent acquisitions in Serbia and Slovenia are pending. Net interest income increased by 17% to 170.7 billion forints and net revenue from commissions and fees climbed 18% to 66.8 billion forints. Earnings per share came to 402 billion forints for the period.