UOB shares plunge as much as 4.6% after Q3 profit tumbles
The lender ‘pre-emptively set aside’ additional allowances
[SINGAPORE] Shares of UOB plunged as much as about 4.6 per cent on Thursday (Nov 6) after it reported a 72 per cent year-on-year decline in net profit for its third quarter.
The counter fell to S$33.25 two minutes after market open on a S$1.62 drop that momentarily slashed UOB’s market value by nearly S$2.7 billion.
It later pared some of the losses to be 3.2 per cent down as at the midday trading break.
The bank’s Q3 net profit fell to S$443 million, compared with S$1.61 billion a year earlier, reported UOB.
The result was far from the S$1.34 billion consensus estimate according to a Bloomberg poll of five analysts.
The lender “pre-emptively set aside” additional allowances worth S$615 million in Q3, bringing the total allowance for credit and other losses to S$1.36 billion as at Sep 30. This compared to S$304 million a year earlier.
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