Milton Brady, managing director of FirstCaribbean International Bank Jamaica Limited continues to grow the bank's loan portfolio. - File

FirstCaribbean International Bank Jamaica Limited's stock rode to a new high Wednesday, gaining more than 11 per cent in fairly light trading on the Jamaica Stock Exchange.

At market close, with only 4,166 units traded, FCIBJ added $2.99 to its stock price to close at a 52-week high of $29.

On Thursday, the stock rose even higher to $32 for another new high, this time on even thinner trader volumes of 1,100 shares.

Its parent, FCIB, also traded higher to close at $130, gaining $7.50 over two days.

FirstCaribbean Jamaica's stock movement followed its report of a 57 per cent boost in net profit to $651 million for its nine-month period ending July, underpinned by strong gains in interest income from its loan portfolio. Just over a third of the reported profits, or $257 million, was booked in the third quarter, May-July.

The bank remains number four of six banks, but Managing Director Milton Brady's magic has seen continued strong growth in loans over the past two years.

Most profitable

FirstCaribbean Jamaica's corporate banking segment was the most profitable within the nine-month period, outperforming retail more than three-fold, even though both business units took in similar revenues of over $1.5 billion each.

FirstCaribbean chairman Michael Mansoor, in his accompanying statement to the accounts, said however, that a portion of profits was due to one-off gains, which when disaggregated from the accounts, reflected true net income growth of 49 per cent.

"Included in these results, were the impact of a change in policies, as highlighted in the notes to these financial statements, which resulted in a onetime gain of $55 million (net of taxes) and the impact of a change in accounting estimate which resulted in additional depreciation of $24 million year to date," said Mansoor.

"Excluding these items, earnings increased by $205 million or 49 per cent over the period in the prior year July 31, 2006. This increased performance was driven primarily by the growth in our loan portfolio."

Over $8b loan growth

The bank's balance sheet reflects loan growth of over $8 billion, year on year, from $21 billion in July 2006 to $29 billion in July 2007.

Loan growth was the major portion of the growth in assets to $40.7 billion, up by almost $11 billion year on year. Bank deposits also grew by $8 billion in the same period.

To support its programmes, the bank has floated some $1.5 billion of new debt issues, and also transferred $460 million from retained earnings to the statutory reserve fund to, said Mansoor, "support the continued growth of our business."

business@gleanerjm.com