Mortgage lending boosts profits at IIB Bank

Corporate bank and mortgage lender, IIB Bank, grew profits by over 24 per cent last year, according to figures released yesterday.

The Belgian-owned bank said that profits for 2006 were €124.6 million against €100 million the previous year.

IIB had net operating income of €198 million last year, an increase of just over 20 per cent on the €164 million it reported in 2005.

Operating expenses grew by 7 per cent to €59.2 million from €55.6 million.

The bank provided €626,000 for impairment losses on loans and advances, leaving it with operating profits of €139.3 million, 26 per cent ahead of its 2005 operating surplus of €110.8 million.

Assets grew 24 per cent to €22 million from €17.6 million.

The total value of its loan book, a key contributor to profits, grew 25 per cent in 2006 to €15.9 billion from €12.7 billion the previous year. IIB is focused on home lending and providing finance to businesses. Chief executive Ted Marah told The Irish Times that the bank welcomed the recent easing in the residential property market.

"I would be somewhat heartened by the levelling off in house prices that we saw in the latter half of the year," he said.

"The increases we saw in the first half were very high, in the teens at least, and . . . [ were] not sustainable."

On the business side, it opened a new office in Limerick during the year and continued to provide finance to small and medium-sized enterprises.

"There's a lot of activity there, a lot of people starting their own businesses or expanding them," Mr Marah commented.

It is also active in overseas property investment, where it works with its Belgian parent, KBC, in arranging backing for Irish property developers who are investing in projects in eastern and central Europe.

One of the projects that it and its parent, KBC, agreed to finance in 2006 was Ballymore Properties' €500 million Eurovea complex in the Slovak capital, Bratislava.

Eurovea is a combined, retail, commercial, residential and hotel complex which the Irish company is developing in Bratislava's old town. Ballymore, whose principal is businessman Seán Mulryan, got the green light for phase one of the project from the local authorities there last June.

"We did that jointly with KBC, which has a presence on the ground there," he said.

"KBC is very active in central Europe and we have been able to use that partnership to provide funding for Irish players involved in the property market there."