Asset quality remains a concern for DBS: analysts

Hong Kong

DBS GROUP Holdings chief executive officer Piyush Gupta's robust defence of his bank's handling of loans to Swiber Holdings has failed to ease some analysts' concerns that more losses could emerge from financing the struggling energy-services industry.

Following a briefing with Mr Gupta on Monday, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse issued reports saying asset quality remains a concern for DBS, with the latter firm downgrading the Singaporean lender's stock to neutral from outperform. The consensus analyst rating on South-east Asia's largest bank has dropped to the lowest in almost seven years, according to recommendations compiled by Bloomberg.

In its second quarter results on Monday, DBS disclosed an exposure of S$721 million to Swiber and took S$150 million of provisions for losses related to the energy-services firm, which is under court supervision as it tries to turn its business around. DBS had an exposure of S$7 billion to oil support-services companies other than S…