BNK Financial Group(138930) said on the 28th that its group consolidation net income for the first half of this year came to 411.8 billion won. That was down 64 billion won (13.5%) from the first half of last year (475.8 billion won).
BNK Financial Group said the reason for the decline in net income was a base effect because 54.4 billion won in liquidation gains from the BNK Gangnam Core Office Fund were reflected in the first half of last year, and added that net income also fell this year due to a 44 billion won settlement loss from purchasing an external stake in the Yeouido Core Office Fund.
The banking institutional sector posted weak results. In the first half of this year, Busan Bank and Kyongnam Bank recorded net income of 356.2 billion won. That was 54 billion won less than the first half of last year.
In contrast, nonbank units such as capital, investment securities, savings bank, asset management, and venture investment improved earnings by as little as 2 billion won and as much as 26 billion won. As a result, they achieved net income of 172.6 billion won, up 63.8 billion won from the same period last year.
The group asset soundness indicators showed that the ratio of substandard or worse loans in the second quarter of this year was 1.46% and the arrears rate was 1.34%, improving by 0.11% and 0.08%, respectively, from the first quarter.
The common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio, which indicates capital adequacy, fell 0.16 percentage points from the previous quarter to 12.14%. Despite efficient risk-weighted asset management and an increase in retained earnings, growth centered on high-quality assets and the ongoing shareholder return policy had a significant impact.
BNK Financial Group plans to continue managing risk-weighted assets more efficiently to steadily improve its capital ratio.
At the board meeting that day, the company approved a quarterly cash dividend of 150 won per share, and it plans to cancel all of the roughly 3.49 million shares of treasury stock (about 60 billion won) purchased in the first half of this year during the third quarter.