SeABank Projects Pre-Tax Profits Up 40% in 2021

HANOI, Vietnam, April 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank's listed ticker- SSB) expects total assets to increase by 10% in 2021 to top USD8.7 billion. Customers' deposits will grow 9.7% to USD5.42 billion and outstanding loans to customers are set to climb 13% to USD5.37 billion respectively; while NPL is well under control at 1.76%. Collectively this will put profit before Tax at a solid USD105 million equal to a 40% increase when compared to 2020.

The Bank's profit derives from business activities, loans, service fees collections and non-interest revenues. These include insurance, service fees from customer accounts, e-transaction channels and card services. A significant improvement to the balance sheet will also come from revenues generated through insurance premiums, projected to increase 180% over last year 2020 performance.

In 2021, SeABank also aims to increase its charter capital from USD527 million to USD665 million through issuing shares to pay dividends, launching ESOP program to the employees, and potential private shares placement. Utilizing USD49.2 million in accumulated undistributed profit, SeABank will issue a total 110,244,161 shares (equivalent to 9.12%) to pay existing SSB shareholders stock dividends in accordance with regulations. ESOP 2021 program will issue maximum 23,500,000 shares to employees and (or) SeABank subsidiaries.

In addition, the Bank will issue 181,311,631 shares in the form of a private offering to domestic, to foreign institutional investors and to individual investors.

On March 24, 2021, SeABank listed its shares on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange (HOSE) under listed ticker SSB. An eventful 6 days saw SSB closed 6 consecutive days at ceiling price from USD72 cents on its first trading day to USD1.23 per share by end of March 31 session. The Bank's market capitalization increased to USD1.48 billion and was the Top 12 capitalized banks on the market.

On the Q1 2021 numbers, SeABank had already outperformed its business results with consolidated profit before tax of 2.3 times versus the same period in 2020 by exceeding USD30.5 million in profits off TOI of USD62.8 million, up 48%.

This achievement was partly attributed to improving the cost to income ratio (CIR) by 11.2% from 52.0% in 2020 to 40.8% year-to-date. These outperforming results were supported by the bank's total assets which reached USD8.1 billion, up 24% compared to last year, and additional support by customers' deposits of USD5.02 billion, an increase of 6.8%.

SOURCE SeABank