National Bank quarterly profit rises 6%

National Bank of Canada reported a 6 percent increase in quarterly profit on Wednesday, benefiting from a recent acquisition that enabled it to beat market expectations. The bank reported that its profit in the fiscal third quarter rose to $453-million, up 3 per cent from last year. After making some adjustments, profit was $1.25 a share, beating analysts’ expectations by 6 cents.

The profit worked out to $1.31 a share, up from $1.28 a share in the third quarter of fiscal 2015. Total revenue was up three per cent to $1.56 billion. Provisions for credit losses fell to $45 million from $56 million.

National was the last of the big banks to report their third-quarter earnings this month. All six banks saw profits rise from the same quarter last year. Total profits of the big six came to $10.37 billion in the quarter. That’s up 12.6 per cent over last year’s Q3 profit figure of $9.21 billion. Two of them, Royal Bank and Scotiabank, also boosted their stock dividends.

Canada’s sixth-biggest lender said net income rose by 6 per cent to $478 million from a year earlier, benefiting from the acquisition of Advanced Bank of Asia in May. Earnings per share of $1.31 beat the analysts’ average estimate of $1.20, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Net income rose by 5 per cent to $203 million in the bank’s personal and commercial division and by 5 per cent to $80 million for the wealth management business.

Within the bank’s businesses, earnings from personal and commercial banking rose 6 per cent, driven by gains in consumer loans, mortgage loans and commercial lending. Nearly 84 per cent of the bank’s loans were to borrowers in Quebec and Ontario. However, National Bank is not immune to struggling oil and gas companies, which account for about 2.8 per cent of the bank’s total loan portfolio.