BEIJING-Agricultural Bank of China's net profit more than doubled last year amid strong growth in its intermediary business, but its bad-loan ratio remained high, the rural lender said.
Net profit jumped to 11.87 billion yuan ($1.71 billion) from 5.23 billion yuan in 2006. Operating revenue rose 31% to 114.8 billion yuan.
Revenue from intermediary businesses rose 68% to 23.44 billion yuan from 13.98 billion yuan, and accounted for 15% of total revenue.
Agricultural Bank is the only one of China's Big Four state-owned banks that isn't listed.
Like many other Chinese banks, Agricultural Bank's fee-based business, including wealth-management services and fund products, has attracted increasing demand. Net interest income rose 36% to 98.05 billion yuan last year from 72.37 billion yuan in 2006. But the lender, which is awaiting a delayed recapitalization and restructuring that are prerequisites for listing, said its nonperforming-loan ratio remained high.
It said nonperforming loans accounted for 23.5% of its outstanding loans as of the end of 2007, up 0.07 percentage point from a year earlier, mainly because it used stricter criteria to measure the quality of its loans. In comparison, China's overall commercial-banking industry had an average NPL ratio of 6.17% at the end of 2007.
Regulators have conceded that recapitalizing and restructuring Agricultural Bank in preparation for listing is more complex than it was for China's other large banks, as the lender is the weakest among them after years of forced lending.
The bank said total assets rose 13% to 6.05 trillion yuan last year. Outstanding loans totaled 3.48 trillion yuan, up 11% from a year earlier, while deposits stood at 5.28 trillion yuan, up 11%.
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