BANGKOK: Thailand's fifth-largest lender, Bank of Ayudhya, part-owned by General Electric , reported a drop of nearly 80 percent in quarterly net profit on Friday due to slow loan growth, higher provisions after floods and extra costs due to an accounting change.
The bank, 33 percent owned by a unit of General Electric, made an October-December net profit of 478 million baht ($15 million), down from 2.26 billion a year earlier and 3.01 billion in the third quarter.
Forecasts from nine analaysts polled by Reuters had ranged widely from 127 million to 2.2 billion baht. Some analysts had not taken into account higher tax costs after the bank adopted new accounting standards on deferred tax.
For 2011, the bank posted a net profit of 9.26 billion baht, up from 8.79 billion baht in 2010.
Earnings at Thai banks are expected to continue growing in 2012 thanks to post-flood demand for repair work and government stimulus policies, analysts said.
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