National Australia Bank (NAB) has turned in a strong half-year performance, announcing to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) today a 15.9 per cent increase in net profit of $2.428 billion.
The company’s cash earnings were up 21.7 per cent to $2.7 billion, which it attributed to market share gains and disciplined margin gains and cost management.
Like all the other major banks, NAB announced a substantial reduction in provisioning for bad and doubtful debts but referenced the impact of recent natural disasters in both Australia and New Zealand.
Looking at its wealth management interests, the NAB announcement said that MLC and NAB Wealth had grown its financial adviser numbers by 241 and had progressed the integration of Aviva.
It said it now had a portfolio of interests in 10 boutique investment management firms through nabInvest.
Drilling down on the performance of MLC and Nab Wealth, the company said cash earnings being interest earnings on shareholders’ retained profits increased by 2.3 per cent to $270 million, with the main contributions being net interest income, investment performance and growth in average in-force premiums.
It said funds under management as at 31 March had increased by 6.8 per cent to $121.9 billion, reflecting improved equity markets – but this had been partly offset by negative discretionary investment flows as investor sentiment remained cautious.
Commenting on the result, NAB chief executive Cameron Clyne (pictured) described the key achievements as being continued progress against strategic priorities and “further consolidation of NAB’s positive differentiation from peers”.
