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.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
Recommended for you
In this episode, hosts Maja Garaca Djurdjevic and Keith Ford take a look at what’s making news in the investment world, from President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominations to Cbus fronting up to a Senate inquiry.
In this new episode of The Manager Mix, host Laura Dew speaks with Claire Smith, head of private assets sales at Schroders, to discuss semi-liquid global private equity.
In this episode of Relative Return, host Laura Dew speaks with Eric Braz, MFS portfolio manager on the global small and mid-cap fund, the MFS Global New Discovery Strategy, to discuss the power of small and mid-cap investing in today’s global markets.
In this episode, hosts Maja Garaca Djurdjevic and Keith Ford are joined by special guest Steve Kuper to dive deep into the recent US election results and what they mean for the world.
