By Agency Reporter

Friday, 3 Dec 2010

Standard Bank Group Limited, Africa‘s biggest lender, said full-year profit might fall by as much as 12 per cent as revenue came under pressure and it incurred ”substantial” costs to cut 1,745 jobs.

Earnings per share in the year to December 31 are expected to be three per cent to 12 per cent lower than in 2009, the Johannesburg- based bank said in a stock-exchange statement on Thursday.

Standard Bank, which is 20 per cent owned by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited, according to Bloomberg on Thursday, said on October 29 that it would cut four per cent of its South African workforce and 13 per cent of its London employees to prepare for a possible decline in revenue. First-half earnings climbed by 15 per cent.

”The pressures on banking revenues evident in the first six months of 2010 have intensified in the second half of 2010,” the company said.

It said, in addition, “the group will be incurring substantial retrenchment costs in the second half.”

 

Source: Punch