OREANDA-NEWS. April 08, 2013. Please note that the numbers are calculated in accordance with Sberbank’s internal methodology.       Also note that the effect of subsequent events post January 1, 2013 is included into the numbers as of January 1, 2013.

Income Statement Highlights for January-March 2013 (as compared to January-March 2012):

Net interest income grew by 16.6% y-o-y

Net fee and commission income grew by 6.3% y-o-y

Operating income before total provisions increased by 18.4% y-o-y

Total provision charge was RUB25.4 bn vs. a RUB12.0 bn charge in January-March 2012

Operating expenses were up by 16.5% y-o-y

C/I ratio declined from 36.3% to 35.7%

Profit before tax increased by 9.5% and amounted to RUB121.1 bn vs. RUB110.6 bn for January-March 2012

Net profit amounted to RUB97.4 bn

Net interest income came at RUB169.2bn, up by 16.6% for January - March 2012:

Interest income increased by RUB63.9 bn basically driven by assets growth;

Interest expenses grew by RUB39.8 bn on the back of increased fund-raising and higher interest rates compared to those in January- March 2012.

Net interest income in 1Q 2013 remained at the level of 4Q 2012 – the highest figure in the last five years.

Net fee and commission income grew by 6.3% to RUB46.4 bn for 3M 2013. For all that increase in non-credit commission income was 15.0%. Growth in commission income was still stimulated by operations with plastic cards, including acquiring operations, which increased by 49.2%.

Operating income before provisions (up 18.4% y-o-y) keeps growing faster than operating expenses (up 16.5% y-o-y). C/I ratio in January-March 2013 amounted for 35.7%, which was by 0.6pp lower than in January- March 2012. Main drivers of the operating expenses were:

personnel expenses increased primarily due to growth in the number of client managers in corporate business and consultants in retail business (to meet the growing business volume and improve the quality of service);

expenses on depreciation increased primarily due to the implementation of the centralization technology program and purchase of the necessary equipment in the second half of 2012;

administrative costs increased due to rent-payments growth and due to the costs of the network reformatting program.

Total provision charges amounted to RUB25.4 bn for January-March 2013 vs. RUB12.0 bn charge a year earlier. The largest increase in spending occurred in Provisions for impairment of other assets – credit related commitments (unused credit lines, guarantees and warranties, etc.).

Year ago - in 1Q 2012 - Sberbank released reserves in other assets.

Sberbank’s Profit before tax increased by 9.5% y-o-y and totaled RUB121.1 bn.

At the same time taxes paid in the 1Q 2013 (RUB23.7 bn) are much higher than the similar payments in the 1Q 2012 (RUB13.2 bn). This dynamics reflects the fact that according to Russian tax law to calculate the amount of advance tax payments for the 1Q 2013 the actual base for the 3Q 2012 should be used, which was significantly higher in 2012 than in 2011.

Assets declined by RUB20.8 bn in March due to repayments of corporate loans, decrease in the amounts placed with other banks, determined by short-term liquidity management, and due to redemption of OFZ, that was part of the bank's portfolio.

The Bank lent about RUB430 bn to corporate clients in March 2013 that is more than in January-February 2013. At the same time, the trend of large corporate loan repayments is keeping: the volume of redemptions in March is close to the maximum monthly value over the past three years.

Due to the fact that in March the repayments volume for corporate loans exceeded the amount of the issuance, the balance of the corporate loan portfolio decreased by RUB24 bn or 0.3%.

Retail customers were granted about RUB150 bn in March, that is much higher than January-February levels. Retail loan portfolio grew by RUB40 bn. or by 1.6%.

Quality of the loan portfolio remained stable: overdue loans stayed the same in March and accounted for 2.78% of the total loan portfolio. Coverage ratio remained strong, with loan-loss provisions at RUB613 bn, or 2.2 times the overdue loans as of April 1, 2013.

Investment portfolio decreased by 0.6% in March due to redemption of one of the OFZ series.

In March, as in February, there was an increase of retail deposits and accounts. The balance grew to RUB141 bn or 2.1% due to deposits and saving certificates. Retail deposits and accounts increased by RUB127 bn in January- March 2012.

Corporate deposits and accounts decreased by 6.5% in March due to decrease in current accounts.

Regulatory capital (under CBR regulation No. 215-P) came to RUB1,774 bn as of April 1, 2013. Capital growth is due to transfer of the 2012 net profit (confirmed by the audit company CJSC "Ernst & Young Vneshaudit") from supplementary capital to the core capital. This entailed a transfer into supplementary capital of a part of 2013 net profit which was initially excluded from regulatory capital as the supplementary exceeded the core capital.

Capital adequacy ratio of the Bank (under RAS) increased to 13.1% in March. The increase was related to the capital growth.