Poland's Alior Bank posts 20% profit jump, slightly above estimates
05/03/2025 07:10
GDANSK, March 5 (Reuters) - Poland's Alior Bank ALRR.WA posted a 20% rise in its full-year net profit to 2.45 billion zlotys ($625.7 million) late on Tuesday, buoyed by a higher interest income, lower financing costs and costs of transactions hedging interest rate risk. That was slightly above market expectations of 2.41 billion zlotys, according to a Reuters poll of analysts. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Alior Bank is one of the two lenders partially owned by Poland's largest insurer, state-run PZU PZU.WA, which holds a 32% stake in Alior. Under its strategy for 2025-2027, PZU outlined plans to streamline its corporate structure, including the consideration of selling its stake in Alior to Pekao PEO.WA, Poland's second-biggest bank by total assets, of which PZU owns 20%. PZU and Pekao have signed a letter of intent about the potential deal, but no binding decisions have been made. Pekao is scheduled to present its own strategy for 2025-2027 at the beginning of April. BY THE NUMBERS Alior's net interest income jumped 9% to 5.18 billion zlotys in 2024, while net fee and commission income rose to 867 million zlotys. Credit losses stood at 403.8 million zlotys. As of the end of 2024, the bank achieved a return-on-equity of 23.9%, well above its target of more than 13%. Alior plans to pay out about 50% of its 2024 profit as a dividend, and said it was considering an issuance of bonds for about 1 billion zlotys, which would be partly used to renew maturing bonds. CONTEXT Alior was expected to unveil its strategy for 2025-2027 on Tuesday, but it postponed the publication until the end of March. ($1 = 3.9158 zlotys) (Reporting by Julia Kotowska, Rafal W.Nowak and Anna Banacka; Editing by Rashmi Aich, Milla Nissi) ((julia.kotowska@thomsonreuters.com; +48 58 769 67 31;))