Danske Bank beats forecast, lifts full-year profit guidance

COPENHAGEN: Danske Bank reported third-quarter pretax profit above expectations on Thursday and raised its full-year profit guidance.

The bank, Denmark's biggest by market capitalisation, said that pretax profit rose to 4.5 billion Danish crowns ($762 million), above the mean forecast of 4.24 billion crowns in a Reuters poll of analysts.

The pretax profit figure is an increase of nearly 100 percent year on year, thanks to lower impairment charges, growth top line and flat costs. Danske Bank was hit especially hard by the European financial crisis because of its exposure to Ireland, a sluggish Danish economy and a collapse in Denmark's housing market. Its results have been recovering in the past couple of years, but only slowly.

"The results are encouraging, but we still have some way to go before reaching our long-term targets," Chief Executive Thomas Borgen said in the statement.

Danske Bank said it upgraded its full-year outlook and now expects net profit of between 11.5 billion and 13.5 billion crowns against a previous outlook of between 10 billion and 13 billion crowns.