Tuesday March 15, 2011
By JAGDEV SINGH SIDHU
jagdev@thestar,com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: Shareholders gave a lot of applause and sang “Happy Birthday” to Public Bank chairman Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow at the group's AGM yesterday where he set a medium-term target of achieving a net return on equity (ROE) of above 26% and an impaired loan ratio of below 1% as he believes the banking sector in Malaysia would be able to maintain its profitability despite uncertainty in the global markets.
Teh, in his address to shareholders at the bank's 45th AGM yesterday, said its joint venture with ING to provide family takaful business would add to the group's fee-based income once operations start in the first half of this year and the group would open four new branches in Vietnam and one in Laos this year.
Chief operating officer Leong Kwok Nyem said Public Bank could maintain a dividend payout ratio of 50% in the medium term.
“Barring unforeseen circumstances, the Public Bank group is expected to maintain its earnings momentum and continue to record satisfactory performance in 2011,” said Teh.
Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow waving to the shareholders at Public Bank’s AGM yesterdayIn recapping the group's financial performance last year, Teh highlighted the strong growth in profit where the group broke the RM3bil net profit mark to register a bottomline of RM3.05bil in 2010. The bank's ROE at the end of last year was 27.1% and its impaired loans ratio was 1.1%.
Loans growth was strong and above industry average, as its been for years, and Teh said the bank's share of the domestic lending business had grown to 16.3% from 15.9% in 2009.
He said domestic customer deposits grew by 15% compared with the industry average of 6.7% and pointed to the growing market share of itsmutual fund business which now manages RM40.6bil of assets under management at the end of last year.
The AGM proved to be a warm affair for Teh and his board of directors who received thunderous applause from grateful shareholders.
Teh, whose birthday was on the same day as the AGM, was also greeted by a hall packed of shareholders singing “Happy Birthday” to the founder of the Public Bank group after it was revealed his birthday fell on the same day as the annual shareholders meet.
The questions posed by shareholders, who were generally appreciative of the performance of the banking group and the dividends declared over the years, contained the usual perusal of the company's accounts but a number of comments latched onto a suggestion by the Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group (MSWG) which wondered if more women could be appointed to the board.
The MSWG also raised the issue of long-serving tenure of independent directors on the board, which Tan Sri Thong Yaw Hong, the non-executive co-chairman of Public Bank replied that since Public Bank was regulated by Bank Negara, independent directors had to fulfil their responsibilities in accordance with the central bank's guidelines while displaying their independence at the same time.
One investor who claims to be from Singapore said her investment in Public Bank was the best she had made as the other global banks she had invested in offered little or no dividends.
Public Bank said shareholders received a total return of RM17,000 from the appreciation of the market value of the bank's stock and gross dividends declared over the past five year, a return of 160% or 24% per annum over the initial RM6,550 to buy 1,000 shares at the start of 2006.
No comments:
Post a Comment