Reuters
by Aziz El Yaakoubi
Attijariwafa Bank, one of Morocco’s biggest lenders, reported on Wednesday a 2015 net profit attributable to shareholders of 4.5 billion dirhams ($457 million), up 3.4 percent.
The bank, controlled by Moroccan royal family holding SNI, said consolidated deposits rose 6.2 percent, while loans fell 0.8 percent.
Net banking income fell 2.3 percent to 19 billion dirhams, because of non recurrent revenues in 2014, it added, without elaborating.
Risk provisions were down 800 million dirhams to 2.2 billion dirhams, the first fall in years after the bank suffered from an economic slowdown in its domestic market and other risks in Sub Saharan Africa.
Return on equity rose to 14.8 percent from 14.6 percent in 2014.
Attijariwafa has subsidiaries in Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Cameroon, Gabon and Congo Brazzaville, plus branches in Europe catering mainly for Moroccans living there.
The bank says it has the largest branch network in Morocco and Africa with 3,534 branches, up from 3,331 in 2014.
SNI said last year it had hired Goldman Sachs and Rothschild to advise it on the sale of a minority stake in the bank.
($1 = 9.8164 Moroccan dirham) (Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)
