MOSCOW: Russia's top bank Sberbank posted 97.4 billion roubles ($3.3 billion) in net profit in the first quarter under Russian accounting standards (RAS), up 16 percent year-on-year on strong net interest income, the lender said on Friday.
The quarterly numbers, viewed by the market as a guide to its performance to international reporting standards, may be the last before a possible sale this month of a $5.5 billion government stake in Sberbank, according to sources.
Sberbank, whose market capitalisation of $73 billion makes its Europe's second largest behind British giant HSBC, said its net interest income rose 26.9 percent on the back of higher lending to both corporate and retail customers.
The increase in the bottom line under RAS, however, was partly offset by trebling in bad loan provisions to 12 billion roubles year-on-year as Sberbank's loan portfolio is rapidly growing.
Sberbank accounts for around a third of overall lending in Russia and is a home for half of household deposits, which along with state backing gives it access to cheap funding.
It said on Friday its assets had grown by 5.5 percent to over 11 trillion roubles since the start of 2012, while its non-performing loan ratio stood at 3.34 percent as of April 1, almost unchanged from the year-start level of 3.36 percent.
Sberbank's shares were trading at 97.10 roubles at 0746 GMT, below a 100 roubles level earlier indicated by CEO German Gref as a trigger to start preparations for the 7.6 percent stake sale in a deal that would leave the state with a bare majority.
Sources said last month that Sberbank might start roadshow for the secondary placement on April 16, in a move that underscores the bank's arrival as a major player in a European industry decimated by the financial crisis.