By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
Kookmin Bank, the nation's largest lender, said its third-quarter earnings rose 14.3 percent from a year earlier on a one-off gain from a stake sale.
Net profit stood at 775 billion won ($852.3 million) in the July-September period, compared with 678.1 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Net income surged 228 percent on-quarter as the lender paid 482 billion won in back taxes in the second quarter.
Revenue gained 10.74 percent year-on-year to 5.2 trillion won and operating profit rose 4.61 percent to 884.9 billion won, it added.
The third-quarter bottom line was higher than a market consensus of 751 billion won forecast by FnGuide Inc., a financial information service provider. Shares of Kookmin Bank advanced 4.03 percent to close at 77,400 won on the Seoul bourse. The results were released right before the market closed.
"Interest income increased 1.6 percent on-year to 1.73 trillion won amid steady growth of the lender's asset although the interest margin was weaker," the lender said in a statement.
"If the one-off gain is excluded, the bank's third-quarter earnings were similar to those posted in the same period of last year.
Kookmin Bank sold a 5.1 percent stake in an insurance unit of ING Group NV back to the Dutch financial giant for 194 billion won in September. The lender said it earned an after-tax special gain of about 110 billion won through the stake sale.
The lender said its assets reached 213 trillion won at the end of September, up 2.9 percent from end-June.
Its net interest margin, or the difference between lending and deposit rates, reached 3.33 percent, down from 3.48 percent from three months earlier.
The lender said its ratio of loans classified substandard and below stood at 0.77 percent in the third quarter, down 0.03 percentage point from three months earlier.