OREANDA-NEWS. Consolidated profit up by 76 per cent to EUR 1,2 billion, reported the press-centre of IMB.

Business with Austrian retail customers confirms turnaround

CEE Division substantially strengthened and growing strongly.

Bank Austria Creditanstalt (BA-CA) continued to increase its earnings power substantially in the first six months of 2007. Contributions to this strong performance came from all of the bank’s Divisions. Austrian customer business improved significantly and the CEE Division, comprising the banks in Central and Eastern Europe, grew very strongly. The group of consolidated companies of BA-CA has significantly widened as a result of the bundling of all CEE banks (except Poland’s Markets) in UniCredit Group’s CEE Division, which is managed out of Vienna.

To make the BA-CA results for the first half of 2007 comparable with the same period of the previous year, we have recalculated the figures for the first half of 2006 on a pro-forma basis reflecting the new structure of BA-CA.

In the first half of 2007, BA-CA’s net profit after tax and minorities increased by 76,1 per cent to EUR 1,208 million (first six months of 2006: pro forma EUR 686 million). Return on equity after tax was 18,7 per cent. The cost/income ratio, at 48,9 per cent, declined to a level below the 50 per cent mark for the first time (first six months of 2006: pro forma 57,7 per cent).

BA-CA’s CEO Erich Hampel: “I am very satisfied with the results. They show that Bank Austria Creditanstalt is benefiting strongly from cooperation within UniCredit Group. Our Group’s business model combines a focus on customer segments, global product expertise and back-office competence centres with a strong local presence and customer business know-how. As part of a strong European banking group, BA-CA has a major competitive advantage which makes us stand out from our Austrian competitors.”