www.top<strong>100</strong>.seenews.com <strong>SEE</strong> TOP <strong>100</strong> Banks <strong>SEE</strong> TOP <strong>100</strong> Banks 17 page 17
page 18 <strong>SEE</strong> TOP <strong>100</strong> Banks Most of <strong>SEE</strong> TOP <strong>100</strong> Banks Increase Assets Despite Crisis but Halve Profits Slovenia’s NLB <strong>Top</strong>s Ranking for Second Year Running, Romania’s BRD Posts Highest Net Profit Despite the financial crisis, most of the top <strong>100</strong> largest banks in Southeastern Europe increased their assets last year with the growth rate ranging from 0.5% to 110%. There were 238 banks active in <strong>SEE</strong> at the end of 2009, serving a market of about 60.4 million people. Each of the top four of the <strong>100</strong> largest banks in <strong>SEE</strong> ended last year with assets worth more than 10 million euro. The same four banks led the ranking of the regional banks in the previous year with assets above the 10-million-euro mark each as well. Most banks in the region either halved their net profit or turned to loss in 2009 as the financial crisis and the economic downturn took their toll on the region. One of the main reasons for the drop in profit was the rise in provisions that banks set aside to compensate for the increasing number of non-performing loans in their portfolios (loans with more than 90 days delay in payments). Although bad loans continued to increase as share of their credit portfolio in 2010, most banks are optimistic that this trend will be reversed in the last quarter of the year. Slovenia’s largest bank, Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), led the <strong>SEE</strong> TOP <strong>100</strong> Banks ranking for a second year running, ending 2009 with 15.5 billion euro in total assets. However, the bank reported an nonconsolidated net loss of 23.6 million euro in 2009 due to higher provisions. In 2008, NLB had a net profit of 49.2 million euro. In mid-2010 NLB said it planned to raise its capital by 400 million euro by the end of the year to finance its strategic growth as a regional bank and to ensure capital strength. At the end of 2009 NLB’s capital totalled 1.178 billion euro with the biggest shareholders being the Republic of Slovenia 18 <strong>SEE</strong> TOP <strong>100</strong> Banks with 33.1% and Belgium’s KBC Bank with 30.57%. Romania’s largest bank, Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR), occupied the second place in the 2009 ranking, unchanged from 2008. It had total assets worth 15.3 billion euro at the end of 2009. BCR ended last year with the highest net profit among the <strong>SEE</strong> <strong>Top</strong> <strong>100</strong> banks, 262.7 million euro, or down from 489.7 million euro in 2008. The bank decided to skip dividend payment for 2009 and use the profit to raise its capital. This was the first time when BCR has skipped dividend since 2005, when Austria’s Erste Bank acquired 69.3% of it from the Romanian government. Croatia’s Zagrebacka Banka (ZABA) ranked third with 12.7 billion euro in assets at the end of 2009, advancing one notch from its fourth place in 2008. ZABA also showed the third highest profit among the top <strong>100</strong> banks in Southeastern Europe – 166.4 million euro, down from 190.4 million euro in 2008. The bank’s biggest shareholders at the end of 2009 were UniCredit Bank Austria AG with a stake of 84.21% and Allianz SE with 11.72%. Another big Romanian bank – BRD (a unit of French banking group Societe Generale), ranked fourth, dropping one place from 2008 with 10.96 billion euro in total assets. BRD, however, was the bank with the second highest net profit in 2009 – 184.3 million euro, significantly lower compared to its 339.6 million euro net profit in 2008. Romania leads the <strong>SEE</strong> TOP <strong>100</strong> Banks ranking by the number of entries with 21 lenders, followed by Slovenia with 18 and Bulgaria and Serbia with 17 each. Croatia is represented by nine banks in the 2009 ranking, Bosnia and Herzegovina – by six, and Albania – by five. Three Macedonian lenders (Stopanska Banka, Komercijalna Banka and NLB Tutunska Banka majority-owned by the ranking leader, NLB) also qualified for the ranking. So did three Montenegrin banks (Crnogorska Komercijalna Banka, NLB Montenegrobanka – also majority-owned by NLB, and Hypo-Alpe Adria Bank), and one Moldovan bank (Banca Comerciala Agroindbank). Methodology TOP <strong>100</strong> Banks is a ranking of the <strong>100</strong> largest banks in Southeastern Europe in terms of total assets shown on their non-consolidated balance sheets as of December 31, 2009. We have also provided net profit or loss figures for these banks for the last two years. To make figures comparable, all results are converted into euro from the respective local currencies, using the central banks’ official exchange rates for the last working day of 2009 and 2008, respectively. We used figures in local currencies when calculating the yearon-year changes in total assets. The pool of banks from Southeastern Europe comprises more than 230 lenders registered in the region, including branches and representative offices of foreign banks. The official sources we used to compile the ranking include the central banks and the governments of the countries in the region, the national commercial registers and financial regulators, bank associations and corporate websites.
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