o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

KONSTANTINOS I. LOIZOS
Figure 5: Gross profit margins
Source: Author’s calculations
This picture is confirmed by Table 5. ETEBA maintains its average positive gross
profit margin for the three sub-periods with little variation, while Investment Bank
exhibits persistently negative average values with much larger variation except in the
interim period. ETBA’s positive average margin for the last period is accompanied by
very large standard deviation. The immediate result is that ETEBA’s gross profitability
was both financially superior to and more stable than that of the other two banks.
Table 5: Gross profit margin: summary statistics
ETEBA Investment Bank ETBA
1965-74 1975-86 1987-93 1963-74 1976-86 1987-92 1967-72 1975-86 1987-1993
Mean 0.02 0.03 0.03 -0.01 -0.01 -0.02 -0.01 0.01 0.02
Median 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.01 -0.01 -0.02 -0.01 0.01 0.01
Std. Dev. 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.08 0.007 0.03 0.005 0.02 0.12
Min. 0.01 0.01 0.01 -0.25 -0.02 -0.06 -0.01 -0.01 -0.10
Max. 0.04 0.08 0.05 0.03 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.05 0.27
The serial trend picture is similar for the net profit margins as Figure 6 and Table
6 illustrate. Of course, the inclusion of staff costs as the only operating expenses
pertaining to administration cost means the latter is an underestimate. However, the
comparative picture of the three banks, which is our principal interest here, is not
affected by this bias in our calculation. Note also that once again, the stability of
these margins is much higher for ETEBA than for the other two banks, which exhibit
relatively high standard deviations around the mean values.
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