Metrobank declares add’l 2% cash dividends

Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. (Metrobank) has declared an additional two percent cash dividend to stockholders of record date Dec. 8 this year.

The latest declaration translates to a 40-centavo dividend per share amounting to P653 million to be taken out of the bank’s accumulated profits.

This brings the bank’s total cash dividend declared this year at five percent or a total of P1.6 billion.

Last year, Metrobank declared a total four percent in cash dividends, amounting to P1.3 billion.

"Our healthy bottomline shows that our strategy for the past couple of years has worked well for us." Metrobank president Antonio S. Abacan Jr. said in a statement.

In the first nine months of this year, Metrobank posted an income of P3.2 billion, representing a 21 percent increase over the same period last year.

The double-digit growth in profits was due to improvements in net interest income, deposit and loan business, and a 14-percent growth in income from trust operations.

Last week, the country’s leading domestic universal bank sold almost P7 billion in non-performing loans (NPLs) to Germany-based Hypo-und Vereins Bank AG (HVB Group), one of the 10 largest banks in Central and Eastern Europe.

"We will continue to explore traditional and large-scale transactions to dispose of our NPLs to improve our income," Abacan added.

Metrobank remains as the Philippines’ largest bank with consolidated assets of P553.92 billion and 561 domestic branches nationwide. It has a growing international presence in Asia, the Middle East, the Americas, and Europe.

It is eyeing several more branches and additional alliances in North America. It already has over 10 branches or existing alliances in New York and California,which houses the biggest concentration of Filipinos in the US.

It plans to establish eight branches mainly through acquisitions in Europe (five in Italy, two in Spain and one in Vienna) aside from its expansion program in London and the rest of the United Kingdom.