Bank Rakyat Indonesia Q4 net profit jumps

Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BBRI), Indonesia's second-biggest lender by assets, fourth quarter of 2010 net profit rose 139 percent, driven by strong loan growth, a bank's statement obtained by Reuters showed.

The firm's fourth quarter net profit was 4.81 trillion rupiah ($551 million), compared with 2.01 trillion rupiah in the same period a year earlier, Reuters calculations showed based on published full-year and nine month results.

State-owned Bank Rakyat, which aims to slash its dividend payout ratio to only 5 percent from 30 percent, reported a full-year 2010 net profit of 11.47 trillion rupiah. That compared with a net profit of 7.31 trillion rupiah a year before.

Analysts had forecast full-year 2010 net profit up 24 percent to 9.04 trillion rupiah, according to Thomson Reuters' Starmine SmartEstimate.

Bank Rakyat, which specializes in microlending to farmers and small businesses in Southeast Asia's largest economy, saw 2010 full-year net interest income up 43 percent to 32.89 trillion rupiah, from 23.05 trillion rupiah a year earlier.

The lender's shares rose 0.9 percent on Wednesday ahead of the result, and have gained 2.9 percent this year to outperform the Jakarta index's .JKSE 1.7 percent drop. ($1 = 8722.500 Indonesian Rupiahs). Source: Reuters