Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow said the group was confident that its strong fundamentals will enable it to stay resilient and flexible.
KUALA LUMPUR: Public Bank Bhd
, which recorded another profit milestone in 2017 with profit before tax of RM7.12bil, will accelerate its business and digital innovation as well as pursue operational efficiency.
Its founder and chairman, Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow said on Monday the group was confident that its strong fundamentals will enable it to stay resilient and flexible as well as seize opportunities when they arise.
“Against the backdrop of an increasingly more challenging and complex operating environment, the group’s key priorities are to accelerate business and digital innovation as well as pursue operational efficiency.
“The group’s business model building on its organic growth strategy in the retail banking business, coupled with its prudent credit policies as well as strong risk management practices, will remain the group’s key strengths to sustain continued business and profitability growth,” he said in a statement issued in conjunction with Public Bank’s 52nd AGM.
Teh said net profit attributable to shareholders grew by 5.1% to RM5.47bil in 2017. As a result, earnings per share increased to 141.7 sen in 2017.”
He attributed the group's favourable performance in 2017 was due to the healthy loans and deposits growth, coupled with the strong asset quality and sustained cost efficiency.
As a result, the group maintained its leading position amongst domestic commercial banking groups in Malaysia.
Public Bank group had the highest net return on equity of 15.8%, the most efficient cost to income ratio of 31.9% and best asset quality with the lowest gross impaired loans ratio of 0.5%.
The group’s loans and deposits increased by 3.6% and 3.0% respectively in 2017. Domestic loans increased at a faster pace of 4.6%, higher than the domestic industry’s growth rate of 4.1%. Meanwhile, domestic customer deposits expanded by 3.6%.
“Public Bank remained the market leader in the financing of residential properties, commercial properties and passenger vehicles with market shares of 19.6%, 35.5% and 28.5% respectively.
“In terms of deposits, the group’s strong retail franchise and large domestic depositor base of over six million customers underpin the group’s customer deposits growth.”
“With the steady inflows of customer deposits, the group remained well funded with a healthy gross loans to fund and equity ratio of 80.7% as at the end of 2017,” he said.
Teh also said the Public Bank group was committed to deliver consistent returns to its shareholders and enhancing the long term value of its shareholders’ investment.
“If a shareholder of Public Bank had bought 1,000 shares in Public Bank when it was listed in 1967, and assuming the shareholder had subscribed for all rights issues to date and had not sold any of the Public Bank shares, he would have 148,938 Public Bank shares worth RM3.5mil as at today.
“In addition, he would have received a total gross dividend of RM1.3mil. This translates into a total value of RM4.8mil, representing a remarkable compounded annual rate of return of 19% for each of the 50 years since 1967,” Teh pointed out.
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