The consolidated profit of Alfa-Bank and Ukrsotsbank, which are completing their merger, will be around UAH 1.5 billion in 2019, General Manager of the board of the Alfa-Bank banking group, Board Chairman of Ukrsotsbank Ivan Svitek has said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine, giving his forecast.
“So far, Ukrsots (bank) is still pulling us down on this indicator, but the situation has changed dramatically… By the end of 2019, we plan to reach a total profit of UAH 1.5 billion. Our profit growth dynamics is one of the highest in the market,” he said.
Svitek recalled that in 2018, with Alfa-Bank’s net profit of UAH 1.26 billion, which was the best indicator in the past 10 years, Ukrsotsbank’s net loss amounted to UAH 0.89 billion.
According to the NBU, following the results of four months, the total net profit of the two banks amounted to UAH 406.6 million: UAH 671.3 million from Alfa-Bank minus Ukrsotsbank’s loss of UAH 264.7 million, which is the 10th indicator on the market.
“This is still an echo of the past of Ukrsotsbank. However, we have managed to significantly reduce its losses, which were billions of U.S. dollars before our purchase,” the head of the banking group said, commenting on the results of the four months.
He said that the goal of the merged bank remains the same – to become the largest private bank in the Ukrainian market.
“And we are already in this position in terms of various indicators,” Svitek said.
He said that, speaking of the leading positions, it is about both the number of clients and the volume of assets.
“We are growing dynamically in retail, and in corporate lending we retain our positions,” the head of the banking group said.
According to him, the retention of the corporate loan portfolio is a good result, as the cleaned out NPLs have been replaced by new high-quality loans.
Asked whether Alfa-Bank’s goal is to increase its share in assets from the current 5.5% to 10%, the head of the banking group confirmed that such ambitions exist.
“If we reach 10%, it will be good,” he said, assuming that this could happen in the near future, but giving no other details.
At the same time, Svitek said that the number of branches for the bank is not an end in itself.
He also said that growth can be not only organic, but also through acquisitions.
“We will grow anyway. There are still assets on the market. We are looking at them, analyzing and ready to buy if something very interesting appears. We have a lot of experience and we know how to do it,” the head of the banking group, which in 2014 prior to the acquisition of Ukrsotsbank acquired the Bank of Cyprus, said.
Svitek added that loan portfolios are also interesting to Alfa-Bank, but they are few in the market. According to him, besides that, the financial institution looks at the assets offered by the Deposit Guarantee Fund, but so far has participated in only one tender, where it was a very small package.
