Samba Financial Group, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest lender by market
value, on Wednesday posted a 7.1 percent fall in its first-quarter net profit,
roughly in-line with analyst expectations.
Samba made a net profit of SR1.12bn ($298.7m) in the three months to end
March, compared with SR1.2bn riyals in the same period a year earlier, it said
in a bourse statement on Wednesday.
Analysts, polled by Reuters, expected Samba to make an average SR1.1bn in
net profit for the first-quarter.
Saudi lenders have failed to impress investors so far as banks such as
Banque Saudi Fransi reported a marginal rise in first quarter profit but fell
short of analyst expectations.
Al Rajhi Bank, the Kingdom’s largest Islamic lender, also missed analyst
forecasts on Monday, when it reported first quarter gains on improving
operational profits.
Analysts expect Saudi banks to perform better in 2011 as they cut down on
provisions and begin to lend more as the country is undergoing multi-billion
dollar infrastructure projects.
Last month, King Abdullah offered a more than $90 billion handout to boost
security and religious police forces as well as on infrastructure projects.
This handout follows a previous package of $37bn.
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