Sberbank five-month net profit doubles

MOSCOW: Sberbank, Russia's top lender, said on Tuesday net profit under Russian accounting standards more than doubled in the first five months, helped by strong interest income and loan write backs.

Sberbank, which holds around a third of Russian banking assets, said its RAS net profit came to 137 billion roubles ($4.9 billion), with loan write backs reaching 13.8 billion roubles in January-May as its loan book continued to improve. Sberbank, which posted 58.1 billion roubles in RAS net profit for the same period last year, allocated 74.9 billion roubles to cover potential loan losses in the first five months of 2010. The lender also said net interest income rose 4.3 percent, mostly on the back of rising retail loans' profit. Sberbank, whose RAS results are seen as an indicator to its performance under international standards, aims to post 230-250 billion roubles net profit for the whole 2011.

Copyright Reuters, 2011