send to a friend by email

Bank of Palestine earns pretax income of $21.77 million in 1H 2011

2011-08-15

The Palestine Exchange (PEX) received  a draft of reviewed interim consolidated condensed financial statements from Bank of Palestine (BOP). The PEX disclosure rules in place give all of the PEX listed companies a period of 45 days to report their first half interim financial statements as reviewed by their independent external auditor. Their disclosure has been published on the PEX website (www.pex.ps) and emailed to PEX member securities firms in conjunction with this press release.

The disclosed draft financials were not approved by the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA) and there may be some material changes. The bank must disclose the reviewed financials by the independent external auditor once approved by the PMA.

The disclosed information includes: an unsigned Independent Accountants" Review Report, the Statement of Financial Position, the Income Statement, the Statement of Comprehensive Income, Changes in Equity Ownership, the Statement of Cash Flows and Notes to the interim financial statements (23 notes). The company also provided its interim financial statements via the approved electronic form of disclosure applicable to the Banking & Financial Services Sector. The interim report also includes the additional information required by Article (38/2) of the PEX disclosure rules in place concerning management, issued shares, material changes and significant events that may have affected financial performance during the first half of the year.

According to company data for the first half of this year, net profit before taxes reached 21,767,354 USD, compared with a net profit before taxes of 17,720,284 USD from the first half of 2010, a net increase of 22.8%. Total assets of the company have reached 1,559,110,802 USD as of June 30th, 2011, compared to total assets of 1,545,038,022 USD as of December 31st, 2010, a net increase of 0.9%. Total liabilities of the company have reached 1,376,797,807 USD as of June 30, 2011, compared to total liabilities of 1,381,153,772 USD as of December 31st, 2010, a net decrease of 0.3%. Net ownership equity of the company has reached 182,312,995 USD (including 620,101 USD in minority rights) as of June 30th, 2011, compared with a net ownership equity of 163,884,250 USD (including 574,339 in minority rights) as of December 31st, 2010, a net increase of 11.2% in the last six months. Furthermore, paid-in capital increased from 100,000,000 USD on December 31st, 2010 to 120,000,000 USD on June 30th, 2011, an increase of 20%.

Within the conclusion in the unsigned Independent Auditors’ Review Report (Ernst & Young), the following was conveyed: Based on our limited review, nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that the accompanying interim consolidated condensed financial statements are not, in all material respects, presented in accordance with International Accounting Standard No. (34) . An additional paragraph, “Emphasis of Matters”, was included after the conclusion paragraph and it conveyed: Without qualification, on the basis of matters explained in note #14, BOP did not have tax clearance for the years 2005 through 2010. Moreover, they have tax provisions for 2007 through June 30th, 2011 for all branches except the Gaza branches.