WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-09-15 Time: 10:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Sure Kamhunga
Johannesburg – FIRSTRAND announced a major recovery in profit in the year to June yesterday, finally scotching the bad memories of its volatile performance in the past, particularly in 2008.
This was when its investment arm was knocked off the rails by exposure to a bad investment in the failed derivatives firm Dealstream.
Even though the group benefited from a windfall from a once-off transaction by its private equity division during the year under review, all its operating units, led by First National Bank (FNB), contributed to earnings growth.
This is in contrast to its three rivals, who despite reporting only on the six months to June, produced results that were largely described as below expectations by analysts.
Yesterday, FirstRand group CEO Sizwe Nxasana admitted it had been a tough ride the past year, but said several favourable factors, supported by an aggressive business growth strategy, had helped the diversified group to perform better than expected.
First Rand, which had alerted the market in June that its diluted earnings per share would be up by between 27% and 37%, reported earnings of 178,3c , a 34% increase, compared with 133,1c in the same period last year.
Normalised earnings were R9,9bn, up from R7,15bn the year before.
Two years ago, the group was embarrassed after getting embroiled in losses incurred by Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) in Dealstream, while some of its offshore investments also performed poorly. But all was forgotten yesterday as Mr Nxasana said the group had weathered the tough economic climate.
The banking group’s total normalised earnings were R8,54bn, an increase of 41%, while Momentum, which is being merged with Metropolitan Life, provided R1,81bn, a growth of 10%.
FNB’s local operations produced a pretax normalised profit of R5,83bn, while its units outside SA contributed R1,25bn.
RMB’s pretax profit was R4,62bn, described by Mr Nxasana as the second-highest in its history, and Wesbank’s was R1,3bn.
Overall impairments went down 29% to R5,7bn from R8bn, primarily in FNB and vehicle finance firm Wesbank, reflecting the benefits of low interest rates.
Noninterest revenue grew to R26bn from R20bn, which reflected the strong recovery in RMB’s trading , while the sale of its share in the now listed Life Healthcare realised a profit of R1,25bn.
“We are extremely pleased with this performance, which was driven by both an improved macroeconomic environment and the positive results from underlying strategies executed by our operating franchises,” Mr Nxasana said.
Sanlam Investment Management analyst Patrice Rassou said he was impressed with the results. The “surprise” was the turnaround at RMB, which he described as “more dramatic than we had thought (because) they have produced very strong results in terms of earnings growth, which more than doubled”.
In a commentary on the results, Mr Nxasana said the recovery in earnings in the banking group was driven mainly by a modest increase in top-line revenue.
It was also due to the “reversal of the two most significant negative issues from the previous comparative period, namely bad debts emanating from the large retail lending books and losses from certain offshore trading portfolios with the investment bank”, Mr Nxasana said.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 15 September 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201009150356.html?viewall=1