Bank BPH-PBK announces much lower Q3 results

The country's third-largest banking group, BPH-PBK, announced yesterday that its consolidated net profit amounted to only zl. 13 million for the first three quarters of 2002 - much lower than the zl. 40 million expected by the markets and zl. 21 million less than a year earlier. "The economic situation is still very difficult for both our corporate and retail clients and this has had an impact on our results," Chief Executive Jozef Wancer explained. However, he emphasized that the lender, a unit of Germany's HVB Group, expects to post better results in the final quarter due to a stronger core business performance and one-off gains from the sale of assets, including a stake in card-clearance center Polcard. Despite the general slow-down in the banking sector, BPH-PBK's profits on its banking activities continued to rise thanks to stronger income from fees and commissions and robust gains on financial operations. Profits on banking activity reached zl. 724 million in the third quarter, up from zl. 668 million in the second and zl. 663 million in the first. The company's recent troubles are largely the result of bad loans, redundancy payments and other restructuring costs following last year's merger of HVB's two Polish units. (Puls Biznesu, p. 14; Reuters) J.K.