St George rises above

St George Bank has defied market volatility and other factors to be in a position today to reveal a 12 per cent increase in unaudited cash profit to $1,073 million for the 10 months to July 31.

St George chief executive Paul Fegan said the result had been achieved against the backdrop of a challenging operating environment and that the bank continued to perform well with strong growth across its core businesses and product lines.

He said that he was particularly pleased that the bank had completed 100 per cent of its 2008 term wholesale funding requirements and had already raised $3.3 billion of the estimated $11 billion to $12 billion term wholesale funding requirements for 2009.

However, the bank was not entirely immune from the market volatility with Fegan reporting that managed funds balances had fallen 15.6 per cent with a 4.4 per cent decline to $42 billion having occurred since the end of March.

He said that Asgard remained in the top four for net flows and this represented a solid performance given the disruption in investment markets.

Fegan said the bank remained on track to meeting its earnings per share growth target of 8 to 10 per cent for the 2008 financial year, albeit that this target excluded the impact of hedging and non-trading derivatives volatility and significant items and assumed a reasonably sound economic environment and no further one-off material credit losses.