ANZ profit up 53 per cent
Just a day after National Australia Bank (NAB) reported a 62 per cent surge in profit, the ANZ has reported a 53 per cent increase in net statutory profit to $4.5 billion.
The result, announced to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) this morning, prompted ANZ chief executive Mike Smith to say the banking group “now has momentum in every area of our business”.
Looking specifically at the Australian business, Smith said that profit growth across the business had contributed to a 42 per cent increase in region profit — albeit both income and expenses had been impacted by acquisitions, particularly the remaining 51 per cent of the ING wealth management joint venture.
Smith said that profit from the ANZ’s funds management and insurance business had doubled to $314 million, with the wealth management income up 11 per cent.
Funds under management had risen by 2 per cent.
Despite this positive data, Smith made no mention of any further growth ambitions on the part of the banking group in the broader wealth management sector.
While forecasting that the banking group would finish 2010 in good shape, Smith warned of continuing uncertainty in the global environment, particularly in the US and European economies which he said were struggling to achieve “escape velocity”.
At the same time he said that higher funding costs were “here to stay” along with regulatory uncertainties associated with new capital and liquidity requirements.
“With global economic growth likely to continue to be soft over the medium term, in all, this remains a challenging environment to navigate,” Smith said.
Recommended for you
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Unplugged, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver joins the show to unravel the web of tariffs that US President Donald Trump launched on trading partners and take a look at the way global economies are likely to be impacted.
In this episode of Relative Return, host Laura Dew is joined by Andrew Lockhart, managing partner at Metrics Credit Partners, to discuss the attraction of real estate debt and why it can be a compelling option for portfolio diversification.
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Unplugged, AMP’s chief economist, Shane Oliver, joins us to break down Labor’s budget, focusing on its re-election strategy and cost-of-living support, and cautioning about the long-term impact of structural deficits, increased government spending, and potential risks to productivity growth.
In this episode of Relative Return, host Laura Dew chats with Mark Barnes, head of investment research, and Catherine Yoshimoto, director of product management, from FTSE Russell about markets in Donald Trump's second presidency and how US small caps are faring compared to their large-caps counterpart.